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SOPYRliiHr DtPUSU 



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CHRISTOPHER C'JLLMIiUS. 



COLUMBUS 



AND OTHER HEROES OF 



AMERICAN DISCOVERY 



BY 



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D 'A N V E R S My^^ ?;u^f^ ^ 



£eA 




COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED 

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited 

new york : 9 lafayette place 

London and Manchester 



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Copyright, 1885 and 1893, 
By Joseph L. Blamire. 






(59 ' 1^^- 3 ^^ 



^ee Cdxfon (press 

171, 173 Macdougal Street, New York 



AUTHOR'S NOTE. 

The present volume is intended to give a general idea of the progress of 
exploration in the districts now forming Canada and the United States, with 
the general advance of the white man westwards. The chief authorities 
consulted in the preparation of the " Heroes of the Exodus to the West" 
were the reports to their superiors of the early Jesuit missionaries ; George 
Bancroft's " History of the United States; Bryant's "Popular History of 
the United States ;" and Bancroft's " Native Races of the Pacific." But 
reference has also been made to the original works of all the great travelers 
in the districts under notice ; while much valuable geographical information 
has been culled from the Journals of the learned Societies both of England 
and America, and from Reclus's " Geographie Universelle." 

N. D' AN VERS. 
Hampstead, 1884. 



CONTEI^TS. 



CHAPTER I. 

America known to the Ancients — The Island of Atlantis— Scandinavian Emigration 

Eric the Red and Gunnbiorn — Bjarni Herjulfson and Leif the Lucky — Discovery 
of Vinland— Thorvald and the Skrrellings— A terrible Struggle— An heroic 
Amazon— Retreat of the Danes — Return of Freydis to Vinland — Massacre of 
Colonists by her Orders— Total Disappearance of Scandinavian Settlement— 
Madoc of Wales— The Brothers Zeni— Marco Polo— Early Life of Columbus— 
The Astrolabe applied to Navigation— A Hearing at last— Duplicity of John 

'' II. — Columbus in Poverty and Exile — A generous Prior— Hope and Despair 

Isabella is won over— Full Powers granted to Columbus— The Start from Saltos 

—Discontent of Sailors— Variation of Compass— Mutiny— Land Ahead!— 

Discovery of the West Indian Islands— Return to Spain— Second and Third 

I Voyages— Death in Poverty and Disgrace— Amerigo Vespucci— The Cabots— 

I First Landing in North America- The Cortereals— Breton Fishermen. . 7 

CHAPTER IL 

[The Spanish in the Gulf of Mexico— Vasco Nufiez de Balboa concealed in a Cask— 
I His Pardon— Shipwreck and Rescue of Explorers by Balboa— His Discovery of 

j the Pacific— His Murder by Anias— Expedition of Ponce de Leon— The 

Discovery of Florida and Search for the Fountain of Youth— Leon's Death from 
poisoned Arrows— Discovery of the Mouths of the Pacific by Francis Garay— 
Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in Florida— His Cruelty to the Natives— Their 
Retaliation— Verrazano on the Atlantic coast of North America— The Invasion of 
Florida by Pamphilo de Narvaez— His Disappointment, Retreat, and Death— 
The Captivity and Escape of four of his Followers— The Expedition of Hernando 
de Soto — Meeting with Juan Ortiz — His romantic Story— An Indian burned 
alive— A native Princess— At the foot of the Apalachian Mountains- 
Southward to Mavilla— Struggle with Indians— Westward ho ! and Discovery 
of the Mississippi— De Soto in a new Character— His Death and Burial in the 
Mississippi— Escape of his Men under his Successor, Luis Muscoso de Alvarado— 
Murder of Louis Cancello, the Missionary— Expedition of De Luna. . 30 



^ GonUiits. 

CHAPTER III. 

Verrazano sent out by Francis I, — Discovery of the Hudson — Jacques Cartier in 
Canada, and his Discovery of the St. Lawrence — Touching Scene at Hocliehiga — 
Foundation of Fort Charles on the Site of Quebec — Kidnapping of Dounacona 
and other Natives, and return to Europe — Death of Indian Captives, a.id cold 
Reception at Hochelaga on the Return of Cartier without them — Break-up of 
the Colony and Flight of Cartier — Arrival of Robeval — Sad Fate of his People — 
Ribault and the French Refugees on the River of May — Return lioine of 
Ribault — Assassination of Pierria — Escape of Colonists in a crazy Pinnace — 
Their Murder of a Comrade for Food — Their Rescue by an English Vessel — 
Laudonniere's Colony on the May — Mutiny, and Troubles with the Indians — 
Famine, and Arrival of Ribault — Disgrace of Laudonniere — Arrival of Menen- 
dez — Massacre of French Huguenots by Spaniards — Escape of a little Remnant 
to Anastasia — Second and third Massacres — Gallant Bearing of Ribault — 
Foundation of St. Augustine — Vengeance of De Gourgues on the Spanish — • 
Murder of Missionaries in Florida — St. Augustine burned by Drake. . . 49 

CHAPTER IV. 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert's unsuccessful Voyages, and Death by Drowning — Sir Walter 
Raleigh's Renewal of his Brother's Patent — Grenville and others sent out to 
Virginia by Raleigh — First Settlement at Roanoake — Its Abandonment by 
White — Birth of Virginia Dare — Search for the lost Colony — Death of 
Bartholomew Gilbert — Gosnold's Expedition — Formation of the Southern and 
Northern Companies — Failure of the Latter to gain a Footing in Maine — Arrival 
in Chesapeake Bay of Colonists sent out by the Southern Company — Foundation 
of Jamestown — Smith's Visit to the Potomac — His Captivity among the 
Indians and Rescue from Death by Pocahontas — Smith chosen President — The 
Coronation of Powhatan — A new Charter obtained — Emigrants shipwreck — 
Smith wounded, and compelled to leave Virginia — Subsequent Troubles — 
Arrival of Sir Thomas Gates — The Colony reduced to sixty starving Men and 
Women — Jamestown abandoned — Arrival of Lord De La Warre — Return to 
Jamestown — Marriage and Death of Pocahontas — Gradual Growth of Virginia 
— Terrible Massacre of 162'-2, and the Results of that Massacre — Arrival of Lord 
Baltimore in Jamestown — First Settlement of Maryland — Father White. . 64 



Contents. ^^ 

CHAPTER V. 

The French in Maine, and their Settlement at Port Royal — Jesuit Missionaries at 
Grand Manan — Destruction of French Colonies by Argall — John Smith and 
Thomas Hunt on the Coasts of Maine — Vines on the Saco River, and Dermer 
on Long Island — Early History of the Pilgrim Fathers — Arrival of the 
May-flower off Cape Cod — Preliminary Exploration by Miles Standish— 
Discovery of Plymouth Harbor, and first Landing on Plymouth Rock — An 
Indian Visitor — Arrival of fresh Emigrants — Complications with them and with 
the Indians — An Indian Chief saved by Englishmen — Indian Plot revealed — 
Ringleaders slain by Standish — Puritan Refugees at Cape Ann — Standish sent 
out against '.hem — Peace made by Conant — Conant's Settlement at Salem — 
The Dorchester Company — Endicott sent out by it to Massachusetts — Arrival 
of Winthrop with 800 Emigrants — Foundation of Boston and other Towns — 
Roger Williams expelled from Salem — His Settlement in Rhode Island, and 
Foundation of Providence — Visit of Indian Chief from Connecticut to Boston — 
Emigration to Connecticut — John Winthrop appointed Governor — Tearing 
down of Dutch Arms, and Foundation of Saybrook Fort — Hooker's Emigration 
to Connecticut, and Foundation of Bradford — Troubles ahead — Discovery of 
the Hudson — Fight with Indians — Discovery of Hudson's Bay and Death of 
Hudson — Foundation of New Netherland Company — Dutch Explorations in 
Delaware, etc. — West India Company founded — Settlement of Walloons at 
Albany — Foundation of New York — The Swedes on the Delaware — Disputes 
between them and the Dutch, and between the Dutch and the English. . 83 

CHAPTER VL 

Champlain in Maine — Foundation of Quebec — Discovery of Lakes Peter and Cham- 
plain — Foundation of Montreal — First Navigation of the Ottawa — Discovery of 
Lakes Huron and Nipissing — An Iroquois Execution — Canada taken by the 
English, and restored to the French — Death of Champlain — Fathers Breboeuf 
and Daniel on Lake Huron — Raymbault and Pigart on Lake Nipissing — Jogues 
among the Iroquois — His Murder — Capture, Conversion, and Execution of one 
of his Murderers — Terrible Iroquois War — Father Dreuillette among the 
Sioux — His Death in the Forest — Allouez on Lake Superior — Rumors of a 
great River on the West — Marquette discovers the Mississippi — Descent of the 
River in native Canoes — Arrival in Arkansas — Saved by the Pipe of Peace — 
Up the Mississippi to the Illinois — Across North-eastern Illinois — Death of 
Marquette on the shores of Lake Michigan — Expedition of La Salle — Loss of 



xii Contents. 



^ 



the r/r/V////— Building of a new Vessel— Discovery of Lake Peoria— Down the 
Mississippi to tlic Sl'u— Second Expedition of La Salle— Fruitless Search for the 
Moulh of the Mississippi— Wanderings in Texas and New Mexico— Despair- 
Attempt to walk back to Canada— Murder in the Jungle— Murder of the 
Murderers— The Conreurs de hols in the North-west— Baron La Ilontan's Trip 
down the Mississipjii— Rumors of the Sea on the West— Journey of Father 
Charlevoix. .....«••• H* 

CHAPTER VIL 

Expedition of Diego de ITurtado — Ulloa's Trip up the Gulf of California — Da Nizza in 
Arizona — The Cities of the Plain — Murder of Dorantes and his Companions — 
Da Nizza visits Cibola in Disguise — Expedition of Alarchon and Coronado — 
Discovery of tlie Mouth of the Colorado — Cibola taken by Coronado — Discovery 
of the Town of Quivira — Discovery of Cape Mendocino by Cabrillo — Viscaino's 
Trip up the North-west Coast — Numerous Deaths from Scurvy — Discovery of 
the Mouth of the Columbia — Death of Viscaino — Expedition of Juan deFuca — 
Supposed Discovery of Queen Charlotte's Sound — De Fonte and Barnardo in 
the North-western Archipelago — Father Kino among the Picture-Writers and 
Sun Worshipers — Discovery of the Mimbres — Establishment of a Mission on 
the Gila — Descent of the Apaches on the Settlements of the Whites — Expulsion 
of the Jesuits, and Murder of Natives — Pearl-fishers on the Californian Coast — 
The Jesuits expelled from Lower California — Exodus of Jesuits from Lower to 
Northern California — First Colony founded at San Diego — Discovery of the 
Bay of San Francisco — Decline of the Power of the Jesuits, and their gradual 
Withdrawal from California. ...... 140 

CHAPTER Yin. 

Murder of Captains Stone and Oldham — Massacre on Block Island — Intervention ot 
Roger Williams— The Last Stand of the Pequods — Emigration of Eaton and 
Davenport to Connecticut — Foundation of New Haven— First Settlement of 
Refugees in Carolina— Their Lands given to eight Noblemen — Arrival of 
Cavaliers and Planters— Misery of the Colonists— Relief at last— Oglethorpe's 
fii-st Settlement in Georgia— His Meeting with the Indian Chiefs— Pennsylvania 
granted to Penn— His Reception in Delaware— His Voyage up the River- 
Treaty with the Indians— Foundation of Philadelphia— Rapid Growth of 
Pennsylvania— Foundation of Ilarrisburg— The French and Indian War- 
Foundation of Pittsburg— The War of Independence— Freedom won for the 
Thirteen Original States of the Union— Declaration of Independence on the 
4th July, 1770. . ...... 153 



Contents. xm 

CHAPTER IX. 

P'Ib«rville's Arrival at the Mouth of the Mississippi — Foundation of the first French 
Fort on the Bay of Biloxi — English Expedition to the Mississippi — The 
Mississippi Scheme — Foundation of New Orleans — Bursting of the Bubble — 
Louisiana ceded to England — Boone's first Trip to Kentucky — Taken Prisoner 
by the Indians — Escape — Meeting with his Brother — Murder of Squire Boone's 
Servant — A White Man's Skeleton found in the Woods — Hunters on the Ohio 
and in Tennessee — First Settlers start for Kentucky — An Indian Ambush — 
Retreat — Boone in Despair — Fresh Hope — Boone's Third Trip at the Head 
of a Surveying Party — Purchase of Lands from the Cherokees — Foundation 
of Boonesborough — Influx of Emigrants acx-oss the Alleghanies — First Settle- 
ment of Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, and the South of Michigan — The English 
supplant the French in Louisiana — Restriction of the Name of Louisiana 
to a small Tract — First English Settlements in Mississippi and Alabama — 
Acquisition of Florida — First Spanish and English Settlements in Texas — 
Acquisition of California, Arizona, and New Mexico — Gradual Retreat of the 
Red Men before the White Settlers. . . . . . 164 

CHAPTER X. 

The new-born Republic — Pike's Embarkation on the Mississippi at Fort Louis — 
Sledge Journey along the Banks of the Mississippi — A Chippeway Encampment — 
A Native Pictorial Record — A Member of the North-west Company — On 
Snow-shoes to Leech and Red Cedar Lakes — A Council of Chippeway Warriors — 
Back to St. Louis — New Expedition organized — The Osage Captives — Along 
the Arkansas — Arrival at the Head-waters of the Mississippi — Search for the 
Red River of the South — The Rio del Norte mistaken for it — The Explorers 
taken Prisoners by the Spaniards — Journey across Texas to Natchitoches — 
Lewis and Clarke embark on the Missouri at St. Louis — The Mouth of the Platte, 
or Nebraska — Among the Sioux — Difficulty with Indians at the Great Bend — 
The Mouth of the Yellowstone River — Encounters with White and Brown 
Bears — The two Forks of the Missouri — Long Hesitation as to which to follow — 
Lewis solves the Problem by the Discovery of the Great Falls — Terrible Storm, 
and Narrow Escape of Clarke — The Gates of the Rocky Mountains — Across the 
Mountains and Discovery of the Source of the Missouri — Search for Shoshones — 
Three Indian Women surprised — In the Shoshone Camp — Vain Attempt to 
reach the Source of the Columbia — On the Summit of the Rocky Mountain 
Range — Down the Pacific Slope to the lower Course of the Columbia — 



xiv Contents. 

Construction of Canoes— Down the Columbia to the Great Falls — Successful 
Navigation of tlicni— In the Great Narrows— The Sea at last— Winter among 
the Flatheads — Home again. . . • • • . i<0 

CHAPTER XI. 

Discovery of liuhring Straits — Cook and Meares— Rescue from Starvation — Encounter 
with Natives — Vancouver on the Western Coast — Gray's supposed Discovery of 
the Columbia — Coxe's Survey of Hudson's Bay — James in Distress in Hudson's 
liay — Foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company — Discovery of Rupert's 
KivtM- — Disputes with the French — Knight's Voyage and his terrible Fate — 
Discovery of Relics of Knight and his Comrades — Moore and Smith in Hudson's 
Bay — Cession of Canada to England, and its Results — Heroes of the Transition 
Time — Ilearne's Discovery of Athabasca Lake and the Copperniine River — 
Massacre of Esquimaux — Discovery of the Arctic Ocean — Result to Geographi- 
cal Science of that Discovery — Hearne's Return to Hudson's Bay — The Indian 
Exile wrestled for — Enthusiasm of the Company — The Rise of the North west 
Company — Mackenzie's Journey to the Slave Lake, and Discovery of the Slave, 
Athabasca, or Mackenzie River — His Voyage to Great Bear Lake — Return to 
Fort Clii])pewyan — Journey across Country to the North Pacific — The Work of 
all Exi)lort'rs united by his last Trip, ..... 200 

CHAPTER XIL 

The Pacific Fur Company — Voyage of the Tonquin — Foundation of Astoria — Massacre 
on the Tonquin — Terrible Revenge — The great Small-pox Chief — Start of the 
Land Expedition — An Ambush — Unevpectod Rescue — Treachery of an Inter- 
preter — Among the Crow Indians — The Black Mountains — The invisible Lords 
of the Mountain — Arrival on the Banks of the Mad River — Across Country to 
the Henry River — Construction of Canoes — Embarkation on the Henry — A 
Cajiadian drowned — The Lion Caldron — Across Country again — Among the 
Akai-chies — News of the Astorians — Threatened Attack of the Natives — 
Arrival on the Bank:, of the Columbia — Along the River to Indian Encampment — 
News of Tragedy on the Tonquin — Down the Columbia to Astoria. , 230 

CHAPTER XIH. 

Cass's Voyage up the Mississippi— Long and James on the Platte, or Nebraska — 
Discovery of the two Sources of the Platte — Among the Mountain Passes — 
Eating of ])oisonous Berries— fleeting with a Bear — Ascent of Pike's Peak — 
Search for Head-waters of the Arkansas— The Canadian taken for the Arkansas, 
and followed to its June-lion with the latter River— Start of new Expedition 



Contemn. xv 

from the Ohio — Cannibalism among the Natives — The Apostle of the Indians — 
Across the Prairies to Lake Michigan — Through Illinois to the Mississippi — 
Up the Mississippi to the Minnesota — The Head-waters of the Minnesota — 
The primal Home of the Red River of the North, the St. Lawrence, etc. — 
Up the Red River to Lake Winnipeg — From Lake Winnipeg to the Lake of 
the Woods, and thence across Country to Lake Superior — Schoolcraft's Ascent 
of the Mississippi, and Discovery of its actual Source. . . . 233 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Wilkes' Survey of the Western Coast — Fremont's Ascent of the Kansas — Encounter 
with Arapaho Warriors — Arrival at Fort Laramie — A threatening Letter — 
Fremont's Reply^On the Sweet Water River — Discovery of Mountain Lake 
and Fremont's Peak — A winged Messenger — Back to Fort Laramie — To the 
Rocky Mountains again — On the Banks of the Bear River — Discovery of the 
Great Salt Lake — Embarkation on the Lake — Sudden Change in the Character 
of its Waters — From the Salt Lake through the Great Basin to Fort Hall and 
thence to the Columbia River — Attempt to return Home by a New Route — 
Lost in the Wilderness — Discovery of Lake Tlamath — Search for an Opening in 
the Mountains — Discovery of Pyramid Lake — Meeting wkh Snake Indians — 
Hunger — Salmon discovered in a Rivei- flowing into the Lake — News of White 
Men on the South — All Hope of reaching United States abandoned — Fremont 
resolves to cross the Sierra Nevada — First Peak scaled — Meeting with Indians — 
A Gap in the Mountains discovered at last — Ascent of the Californian 
Mountain — Opening a Path through tlie Snow — A terrible Prophecy — Flight of 
Guide — First Sight of Seaboard Range of Mountains- -Intense Excitement — ■ 
Down the Eastern Slopes of the Californian Mountain to the Banks of the 
Sacramento — Arrival at Sutter's Fort — Back to St. Louis by way of the South 
Pass — Fremont's third and last Journey. ..... 240 

CHAPTER XV. 

Early History of the Mormons — Murder of Smith — Expulsion from Illinois — Across 
the frozen Mississippi — Through the Wilderness — Summons to the War — 
Young Men sent to the Aid of the Republic — Arrival on the Shores of the 
Great Salt Lake — Building of Salt Lake City — Expedition of Stansbury — 
California ceded to the States — Discovery of Gold near Sutter's Fort — World- 
wide Excitement — Rush of 30,000 Emigrants Westward — Terror of Indians at 



xvi Contents. 

Approach of the White Men — Sufferings in the Mountains — Jealousy of Settlers- 
Prairies set on Fire— Survivors of the 30,000 rescued by White Men from 
California. .....•••• 255 

CHAPTER XYL 

Cozene' Start from Merilla— First Encounter with Apaches, and Murder of Laws— A 
Bear Hunt — To the Ruins of Le Gran Quivara — Two Mules stolen — Back again 
to ^lerilla — Cozens and Cochise, an Apache Chief — Cochise offers to act as 
Guide to the Encainj)nient of his Warriors — The great Mirage known as 
Greenhorn's Lake — A Chaos of Rocks and Precipices — Following an Indian 
Trail — Down the Ravine to the Apache Valley — First Sight of Apache Village 
with Huts built on truncated Mounds — Excitement among the Apaches — 
Cochise explains Co.zens' Presence — Eager Welcome — Arrival of Magnus 
Colorado, the great Scalper — Trying Interview between Magnus and Cozens — 
Eternal Friendship sworn — A blood-stained Baby's Frock — Scalp Dance and 
its attendant Horrors — Back again to Mexico — Second and third Trips to the 
North — With Jim Davis the Emigrant's Friend, to the Navajoe Country — 
Ascent of the Sierra Madre — Encounter with a Panther — In the Zuni Valley 
among the blue-eyed Indians — Ruins of Zuni — Encounter with Navajoes — Jim 
Davis's Story^Re-capture of stolen Cattle — A fall of Three Hundred Feet — 
Marvelous Preservation of Cozens — Nursed by the Zunis — Murder of Stewart's 
Family by Aj)aches — Escape of Stewart to Zuni — His Death of a broken Heart — 
Return of Cozens to Mexico. . . .... 258 

CHAPTER XVIL 

<yrisis in British America — Consolidation of its various Parts into one great Colony — 
Decay of the Hudson's Bay Company — Establishment of an International 
Boundary Line — Journey of Palliser — Admission of British Columbia to the 
Dominion, and Conditions of that Admission — Surveys for Railway — Fleming's 
Expeditions — Dispute between the British Government and the United States — 
Joint-Commission sent out to determine ihe Boundary Line — Results obtained 
^yil 2G9 



HEROES OF AMERICAN DISCOVERY. 



CHAPTER I. 

COLUMBUS, HIS PKEDECESSOES AND HIS IMMEDIATE SUCCESSOES. 

ALTHOUGH the discovery of America used to be dated from the voyage 
of Columbns to the West Indies in 1492, there can be little doubt that 
this great hero was by no means the first explorer of our era to visit the 







New World. The existence of land to the west of the Pillars of Hercules was 
even known to the ancients. Frequent mention is made by Greek and Roman 
authors of islands on the West, especially of the fair Atlantis, concerning which 
Plato gives many details, declaring it to have been of vast extent and great 



8 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



beauty, but to have been swallowed up by the sea in pre-historic times. 
Some modern authors are of opinion that the Canaries are the only existing 

remains of this Atlantis ; 
others that the so-called island 
was in reality the mainland of 
America. Leaving this ques- 
tion to those now studying it 
with the aid of the recent dis- 
coveries in the New "World, 
w^e pass on to find trustworthy 
accounts in the old sagas — of 
which the principal, recently 
discovered in an Icelandic 
monastery, are preserved in 
the Royal Library at Copen- 
hagen — of the presence of 
Danish settlers in Greenland 
as early as 982 A. d. These 
were led thither by the great 
Eric the Red, who is supposed, 
however, merely to have acted 
on information left behind by 
an early settler of Iceland, 
named Gunnbiorn, a century 
before. Gunnbiorn was the 
true discoverer of Greenland, 
which he had sighted 
not 

saerk, or the '' White Shirt," 
because of the perpetual cov- 
ei'ing of snow worn by its 
highlands. 

In a voyage from Iceland to 

THE glacip:ks of GREENLAND. Greenland, four years after 

the visit of Eric the Red to the latter country, a Danish navigator named 

Bjarni Ilerjulfson was driven far out of his coiirse to the South, and saw 

land stretching away on the West ; but he returned home without making 




though 
visited — naming it Hvid- 



Heroes of Amej^icaii Discovery. 9 

any exploration of the new territories, for whicli, says tradition, ' ' he was 
greatly blamed." His reports, however, of what he had seen, led to the 
fitting out and heading of a far more important expedition by Leif the 
Lucky, who, making direct for the most southerly point gained by his 
predecessors, reached the modern Newfoundland, which he called Hell uland, 
and, landing, found it to be "a country without grass, and covered with 
snow and ice." 

From HeJluland, Leif sailed to the present Nova Scotia, which he named 
"Markland," or woodland, because of its extensive forests ; and thence he 
is said to have been driven by a contrary wind on to the coast of New En- 
gland, but on what part of that coast there is no evidence to show, although 
it is generally agreed to have been in about N. lat. 41° 24', a little to the 
north of Rhode Island. Excursions inland revealed the newly-discovered 
district to be rich in vines and timber ; and loading his vessel with grapes 
and wood, Leif made haste to return home with his trophies, giving such 
glowing accounts of his adventures on his arrival, that a short time later 
his brother Thorvald started with a crew of thirty men for the land of 
promise. 

Thorvald is supposed on this trip to have coasted along the shores of 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island, and in the ensuing year, 1004, 
to have sailed as far north as Cape Cod (N. lat. 42° 5', W. long. 70° 10'), 
where he was wrecked in a violent storm. His vessel was not, however, 
materially damaged, and having repaired it, he coasted along the present 
Massachusetts till he came to what is now the harbor of Boston. There he 
landed, and wandering to and fro in the beautiful scenery with his men, 
he for the first ..time came upon some natives, probably Esquimaux, who 
were resting peaceably beneath their quaint skin- boats. 

With the cruelty characteristic of the wild sea-kings of the North, Thor- 
vald at once gave the signal for attack. The poor Skr^ellings, as he dubbed 
the natives, were quickly overpowered. One only escaped, and the others 
were foully murdered. No wonder that this was the beginning of the end 
of Thorvald' s enterprise. That very night, as he and his followers were 
sleeping peacefully, untroubled by any remorse for their evil deeds, they 
were roused by the war-whoop of the Skreellings, come at the bidding of the 
one survivor to avenge his comrades. 

The white men took refuge in their ship, and all escaj^ed unhurt except 
Thorvald himself, who received a wound in the side, from which he shortly 



lO Heroes of America7i Discovery. 

afterward died. He was buried within sight of the Atlantic, on what is now 
Massachusetts Bay, and his sorrowing followers returned home with tlie 
tt'rrible tidings in the ensuing spring. 

Undaunted by the fate of his brother, another son of Eric, Thorstein by 
name, set out for Vinland in 1005, but he failed to find it, and returned 
home, stricken with mortal sickness, in tlie same year. On his deathbed, 
however, he prophesied that his widow, Gudrid, would marry again, and 
hinted that a great career of discovery and conquest was before her future 
children. He was right in the first part at least of his speech, for two years 
hitfr we lind Gudrid, as the wife of a sturdy Icelander named Karlsefne, 
forming part of the largest expedition yet sent out from Greenland to Vin- 
land— an expedition consisting of no less than three ships, and one hundred 
and forty men and women. 

That an important colony was founded by the new adventurers there 
apj>ears no reason to doubt, although it is impossible to fix its exact locality. 
Booths were erected, stores were laid in for the winter, and amicable rela- 
tions were opened with the Skra^llings, who came in great numbers, first to 
stare at the intruders, and then to trade with them, exchanging valuable 
furs for red cloth, etc. 

A slight and almost ludicrous incident w^as the first thing to break up 
what had appeared to be the beginning of a long course of successful coloni- 
zation. A bull belonging to one of the leaders of the expedition rushed 
suddenly among tlie buyers and sellers, so terrifying the natives, who had 
never before seen an animal of that description, that the^'' tied to their 
kayaks, or skin-boats, in the greatest confusion, returning some weeks later 
in greatly increased numbers, and armed with bows and arrows, to revenge 
themselves for what they took to be an intentional insult. 

Fierce indeed was the struggle in whicli they were now involved, and, 
overwhelmed by superior numbers, the colonists seemed likely to be exter- 
minated, when the tide was turned by the courage of Freydis, a daughter of 
Kric the Red, who, imbued with the brave spirit of her father, suddenly 
faced the savages, and brandishing a sword whicli she had taken from a dead 
warrior of her own race, she invited the enemy to come and slay her if they 
would, even tearing (^jien her dress to make clear her meaning. 

The Skra'l lings, perhaps taking these strange gestures for the signs of 
superhuman agency, gazed for a moment in awe-struck silence at the lonely 
figure standing thus unprotected among the shiin, and then, with cries a§ 



Heroes of American Discovery. n 

wild and weird in the ears of the Northmen as those of their champions 
to the nuxives, they one and all turned and fled. 

The terrible slaughter among their men had, however, so disgusted the lead- 
ers of the colony, that they soon afterwards returned to Greenland ; and, but 
for the ambition of Freydis, the history of the Scandinavian colonies in North 
America would have ended then and there. Unable to forget her triumph, 
and eager for yet further distinction, this remarkable woman did not rest 
until she had organized a new expedition, which, under the leadership of 
two brothers named Helgi and Finnbogi, set sail in 1011, and, landing in 
Vinland without molestation from the natives, took possession of the booths 
erected by their jDredecessors. AH seemed likely to go w^ell, wdien the over- 
bearing conduct of Freydis, wdio w^as not one to shine in the peaceful work 
of colonization, led to dissensions among the explorers. By a crafty 
artifice she managed to pick a quarrel with the two brothers, and, with the 
co-operation of her husband, Thorvard — who, though naturally a mild and 
inoffensive man, appears to have been entirely under the control of his 
stronger- minded wife — she succeeded in effecting their massacre, and that of 
all who were inimical to her supremacy. The survivors, terror-struck by 
the fate of their companions, yielded without a struggle to the rule of Frey- 
dis, who, first binding them all by an oath never to tell of her conduct at 
home, set them at work to cut timber and collect the curiosities and valuables 
of the country. Then, when she had acquired enough to insure her w^ealth 
for the remainder of her life, she embarked for Greenland with the little 
remnant of the original party. The Icelandic sagas, already referred to, 
tell how the iniquity of Freydis gradually leaked out, and how, though she 
herself escaped unpunished, her sins w^ere visited upon her children. 

With her return home the attempts at American colonization by the North- 
men appear to have ceased, but tradition tells of many a trip by contempo- 
rary adventurers of other nationalities ; for, between the fitful excursions 
from Greenland — wiiich, as we have seen, left no real or permanent impress 
on the people or districts visited— and the well-organized expedition of 
modern times, we hear of Arab sailors of the 12th century having sighted 
land in the unknown Western Ocean, graphically called, from its real and 
imaginary horrors, the Sea of Darkness ; and of a voyage made in 1170 
by Madoc, son of the Prince of North Wales, who, after sailing for many 
weeks away from his native land, came to a country, supposed to have been 
the modern Virginia, differing in every respect from any European land. 



12 



Heroes of Aineviciui Diseovcry. 



(\M-t:iin travelers of the 17tli century tell of white men speaking the 
\Vel>li loni^aie having been met with among the Indians far away in the 
West ]rn<ling some slight semblance of veracity to the tradition that a 
colony was indeed founded by the Welsh ; but in the absence of all con- 
tirnuitory documents, we are compelled to reserve judgment on the subject, 
l):issing on to the better authenticated story of the voyage of the brothers 
Zrni ()? Venice, who, between 1388 and 1404, are said to have visited Green- 
land and Nova Scotia, and to have long resided as the guest of its king in 
an island called Frisland, the position— indeed the very existence— of which 
has never been fully proved, although some authorities are of opinion that 
it was really only one of the Faroe Islands. However that may be, many 
leu-eiids were long current in Venice of the intercourse with the unknown 
Frisland and islands further west, one of wdiich, called Estotiland, is sup- 
posed to have been Newfoundland. Hints, too, are scattered up and down 
old chronicles, of wandering iishermen sailing south^Aard from Estotiland 
having come to a country answering in the descriptions given of it to Mexico ; 
the Cliinese, Malays, and Polynesians are said to have reached the American 
coasts ; and, to conclude our summary of lore relating to the oldest of the 
continents, Picigano's map, which is dated 1367, gives indications of a 
western continent named Antilles, and a yet older map shows an island wdiere 
Newfoundland ought to be. 

Whether America was or was not visited from Europe or from Asia before 
the time of Columbus, liowever, the barbarism in which European society 
was sunk in medieval times prevented any recognition of the true signifi- 
cance of the details of adventures given by returned mariners ; and their 
voyages thus fail to form any real link between the America of the middle 
ages and that of the present day. If, therefore, we would j^oint out the 
true precursor of the first hero of discovery in the West, we shall find him, 
not in the wild Northmen bent on pillage and bloodshed, nor in the brothers 
Zeni of legend and romance, but in that grand central figure of the scientific 
annals of tlu^ 13th century, Marco Polo, whose book, revealing the e?:istence 
of vast empires in the East, did much to stimulate the enthusiasm, not only 
of Columbus, but also of Bartholomew^ Hiaz, Vasco da Gama, and other 
early heroes of travel, thus indirectly leading to the discovery alike of the 
Cape of Good llopf^ and of America. 

Although (/olumbus never set foot on the Northern half of the American 
conliu'Ut. with wliicli alone we have, strictly speaking, now to do, no record 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



n 



of travel in any part of the New World would appear to ns complete without 
some account of his first voyage, 
and of what led to that voyage. 
For there can be no doubt that, 
but for the noble steadfastness of 
purpose which resulted in the 
achievement of one discovery 
while its author was bent on an- 
other, the revelation of the exist- 
ence of a quarter of the globe 
larger than Europe and Asia put 
togetlier, and which was destined 
to be the scene of much of the 
most stirring history of modern 
times, would have been indefinitely 
postponed. 

Of the early life of Christopher 
Columbus little is known with 
any certainty. He is supposed, 
however, to have been born about 
1435, and, as the son of a poor 
wool -comber of Genoa, to have 
enjoyed few educational advan- 
tages, although, fortunately for him, what little teaching he received seems 
to have tended to foster his peculiar genius. According to his own account, 
preserved in the Historia del Amirante, he began his maritime career at 
fourteen, after a brief sojourn at the Fniversity of Pavia, enduring great 
hardships as a sailor employed in the half-coiumercial, half-nautical cruises 
of the roving ships which, in the latter part of the 15tli century, haunted 
the Mediterranean and the coasts beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. 

In 1459 we hear of a certain " handy sea-captain" named Colombo taking 
part as a private adventurer in an expedition sent out by John of Genoa 
against Naples ; and in 1470 we find the same sea-captain — now in the prime 
of life— settling in Lisbon, and by his marriage with the daughter of Pales- 
trello, the discoverer of Porto Santo, conung into possession of many valua- 
ble charts and journals, the study of which is said to have first suggested to 
him the existence of land to the westward, whic-h land, however^ he from 




CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



I « Heroes of American Discovery. 

liisl to last ciTunt'oiisly supi)()s«'(l to be, not a new continent, but a continua- 
tion of the eastern sliores of Asia. 

Wlu'tluT our hero drew liis inspiration from one antlior or another, or, as 
appears more likely, was led up to the conception of his great design by the 
si)irit of the age in which he lived, affects but little the histoiical fact that 
it was about 1474, when the enlightened efforts of Prince Heniy of Portu- 
gal had ushered in a new era of geographical research, that Columbus first 
enunciated his belief that there was land in the western i)art of the ocean ; 
that it could be reached ; that it was fertile ; and, lastly, that it was inhab- 
itt.(l_ji belief which was shortly afterward converted into a design for 
seeking a western route to India, although eighteen long years elapsed 
before the first step was taken in the realization of a scheme so totally 
opi>osed to all the preconceived notions of cosmographers. 

In voyage after voyage made by Columbus in the succeeding years to the 
Az(»res, the Canaries, and the coasts of Guinea, then the limits of navigation 
to the westward, the future discoverer became more and more fully" con- 
vinced that, with the necessary time and means at his disposal, he might 
convert his dream into a waking reality; but, alas! all his attempts to 
ol)tain a hearing for his scheme from those who were in a 23osition to forward 
it were met by scorn and ridicule. 

The first ray of hope to break upon the despair of Columbus at this ill- 
success was the invention — or, to be more strictly accurate, the application 
to navigation — of the astrolabe, the precursor of the modern quadrant, by 
Afartin Beliaim, and by Roderigo and Joseph, physicians in the employ of 
John II. of Portugal. xVrmed with it and the mariner's compass, as defensive 
weapons, the nautical explorer needed no longer to fear trusting himself on 
the trackless paths of the ocean ; and, Columbus, full of new hope, asked 
for and obtained an interview with John IT. in 1482 or 1483. We can im- 
agine with what eagerness our hero pleaded his cause, and with what patience 
he exi)lained Lvery detail of his scheme, winning at last a consent, though 
but a i-eluctant one, that his proposition should be referred to a "learned 
junto, chaiged with all matters relating to maritime discovery," to which 
title we may add the saving clause, "of which they were cognizant;" for 
the minds of king and council alike were set, not on the pushing of discov- 
ery westwards, but on further efforts to find a new route to India on the 
p:ast, and to ascertain the locality of the empire of the fabulous monarch, 
Prester John. 



Heroes of American Discovery, 



15 



The council to whose judgment the scheme of Columbus was submitted 
consisted of the Roderigo and Joseph already mentioned, and of the king's 
confessor, Diego Ortiz de Cazadilla, Bishop of Ceuta, who condemned it 
without hesitation. The king, however, feeling perhaps not altogether con- 
vinced by the arguments adduced against it, privately sent out a vessel to 
test the route mapped out by Columbus, obtaining no result except that of 
driving the greatest man of the age away from his court, disgusted with the 
duplicity ^vliicli, while openly discrediting their author, could thus seek to 
use his iDlans. 




COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 



The ignorant pilots commissioned to work out the route conceived by the 
master-mind of the great mariner, returned to Lisbon without venturing 
beyond the beaten track ; and in the ensuing year Columbus secretly left 
Lisbon, taking with him his young son Diego. We all know the story of 
his scornful reception at the court of Genoa, and of his arrival, after long 
wanderings to and fro, footsore, liungry and disheartened, at the gate of 
La Rabida, a Franciscan convent in Andalusia, to beg a little bread and 
water for his starving child. 

This simi)le and pathetic request formed the turning-point of Columbus's 
career. The prior of the convent, Don Juan Perez de March ina, whose name 



i6 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



deserves to be immortalized in every record of the discovery of the New World, 
was passin;,^ at the iiiome'iit ; aii<l, struck l)y the manly and dignitied bearing 
of tlic ''beggar," he approached, and asked whence he came and whither 

he was going. 

Columbus, now used to re- 
buffs, was touched by the kindly 
interest shown in his forlorn 
condition, and soon told the 
\\hole story of his woes, his 
dreams of geographical discov- 
ery, his conviction that they 
would some day be realized, if 
not by himself, and so forth. 

The prior, surprised at a reply 
of so unusual a character from 
a wayfarer in circumstances so 
reduced, invited Columbus to be 
his guest ; and, anxious to obtain 
confirmation for his belief in 
the genius of his visitor, he sent 
for his friend, Garcia Fernandez, 
to whom wo are indebted for our 
knowledge of the circumstances 
COLUMBUS AT A CONVENT DOOR. of this portion of our story. 

Fernandez, having listened to all that Columbus had to say, was as com- 
pletely won over as Marchina had been ; and, after many conferences at the 
convent, our hero, no longer in rags, started for the Spanish court, armed 
with strong letters of reconmiendation to the then reigning Ferdinand and 
Isabella. This was in 1486, Avhen the war with the Moors was absorbing 
alike the energies and the resources of the kingdom; and it is not much wonder 
lliat Columbus could at fii-st obtain no encouragement for the prosecution of 
a scheme of maritime discovery. He Avas kindly receiA^ed, however, and in 
tlie rejx'ated absences of the sovereigns, who headed their armies in person, 
he won the ear iii-st of one and then of another inliuential dignitary of the 
court, and in 1401, five long years after his first arrival, he obtained a prom- 
ise from FerdiuMTid, tluit, as soon as the war was over, he and his queen 
"would have time and inclination to treat with him about what he had offered." 




Heroes of American Discovery. ly 

A cliilling message truly to one wlio liti.d wasted the best years of his life 
"about what he had offered ;" and Columbus, more truly disheartened by 
it than by the absolute silence of the sender, went back to his old friend at 
the convent of La Rabida, resolved to sever finally his connection with 
Spa^' 1. It is of this sad period of his history that the Laureate represents 
hin) IS saying, long afterwards — 

" No guess-work I 1 was certaiu of my goal ; 
Some tliought it heresy, but that would uot hold. 
Kiug David called the heavens a hide, a teut 
Spread over earth, and so this earth was flat ; 
Some cited old Lactantius ; could it be 
That trees grew downward, rain fell upward, men 
Walked like the fly on ceilings ? and, besides, 
TliP great Augustine wrote lliat uoue could brealli.- 
Within Ihc zone of heat ; so might there be 
Two Adams, two nuiukiuds, and that was clean 
Against God's word : thus was I I'eaten back. 
And chiefly to my sorrow by the Church, 
And thought to turn my face from Spain, appeal 
Once more to France or England." 

But once more Perez and Fernandez cheered his drooping spirits. They 
would not hear of his deserting their country ; yet another effort should be 
made to secure to it the glory of sending out the great hero of the age on 
what they were convinced would be a brilliant and successful enterprise. 

With a skill which came of a full heart and a mind not easily to be 
turned from its purpose, the aged monk pressed his plea, urging the soured 
Columbus to give Spain another chance ; and, observing that his eyes were 
turning toward France, whose king had sent him a most cordial letter, the 
Father Guardian did not fail to remind him how that fickle country had 
forsaken, in the hour of direst need, one of the most daring and noble of her 
children, Joan of Arc. 

Such arguments slowly made way — the more surely, that the Father quot- 
ed several proofs that men of influence were l^eginning to interest themselves 
in the undertaking of Columbus. The explorer, therefore, at last consented 
to wait the issue of a letter which was now sent by Don Perez to the Spanish 
court, addressed, not to the King, but to the Queen. The answer, which 
speedily arrived, was cheering beyond all expectation ; and, as it contained 
an' invitation to the writer of the epistle to visit her, the old Prior of the 



i8 



Heroes of Amcricaii Discovery. 



ronv.Mit of La ]^il)i(l:i at once saddled his mule, and, strong in the faith of 

liis mission, passed fearlessly 



through the countiy inhabited 
by tlie Moors, whence he soon 
reached Santa Fe, where Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella were. 

Perez lost no time in present- 
ing himself to the Queen, and 
the result of the interview was 
iitly expressed in the message, 
full of holy thankfulness, which 
he sent to Columbus the same 
day — " I came, I saw% God con- 
quered. ' ' The Queen graciously 
expressed her wish to see the 
hero himself, and she gave 
orders that he should be pro- 
vided with funds sufficient to 
pay the expenses attendant upon 
his journey, and upon his ap- 
]iearing before her. In 1492, 
the would-be discoverer arrived 
at Grenada, and presented liim- 




I'KUEZ ON Ills WAY TO SANTA F^. 



self at court, being just in time to find himself a witness of the final over- 
throw of the Moorish power, and the humiliation of Boabdil, the last of the 
Moorish kings. 

Silent and reserved among the rejoicing and shouting multitudes, sym- 
pathizing i)erhaps more keenly with the broken-hearted Boabdil than with 
his conipierors, Columbus still bided his time ; and so soon as the excitement 
of victory had a little subsided, he was admitted to an audience with the sov- 
«'n'igns. It was now decided that Columbus should put his scheme to a prac- 
tical test ; but fresh difficulties arose in consequence of the ''princely condi- 
tions" to which alone the humble and poorly-clad adventurer would agree. 
Not content with the tardy recognition given to the grandeur of his enter- 
l)rise, he dcnumded that he should be "invested with the titles and priv- 
ileges of Adtniral and Viceroy over the countries he should discover, with 
one-tenth of all gains, either l)y trade or conquest." 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



19 



Once more the fate of the New World, 
which had been, so to speak, uncon- 
sciously waiting all this time for the 
arrival of its discoverer, hung in the 
balance. Courtiers clamored at the 
insolence of the sorry fellow who 
wished to be set above their illustrious 
heads ; and the King looked coldly on, 
unwilling to break his word, yet anxious 
to get the matter settled or dropped, 
that he might give the attention so 
sorely needed to his kingdom, drained 
as were its resources by the long wars. 

But now Isabella, true to the renown 
she had won by a long course of noble 
and disinterested conduct, seemed to 
have been suddenly inspired with a be- 
lief in the great mission of Columbus. 
That hero had again determined to leave 
Spain, and, as the story goes, was already 
on the way to Cordova, whence he in- 
tended embarking for France, when, at 
a meeting of the junto discussing the 
scheme, the Queen exclaimed— "/ undertake the enterprise for my own 
crown of Castile, and will pledge my jewels to raise the necessary funds." 

Columbus was at once recalled ; and though the pledging of the Queen's 
jewels was not found necessary, she aided him now with all the energy and 
enthusiasm of her character. On the 17th April, 1492, the stipulations 
granting full powers to Columbus, and conferring on him and his heirs the 
honors he had demanded, were signed at the city of Santa Fe, in the plain 
of Grenada : and on the 3d August of the same year, eighteen years after, 
he first conceived the idea of the voyage, our hero— all preliminary difficul- 
ties over— at last set sail from the bar of Saltos, near Palos (N. lat. 37° 11', 
W. long. 6°, 47'), in command of three vessels— the Santa Maria, the 
Pinta, and the I^iiia, only one of which, the first, and that on which 
the Admiral himself embarked, was decked. He was leader of one hundred 
and twenty men ; but the motley character of his crews, enlisted on compulsion, 




ISABELLA. 



20 



Heroes of Ajuerican Discovery 




:ni(l thoronglily imbued with all 11m> superstitions of the age with regard 
to the perils of the deep, caused Coliiiiihiis uiuch embarrassment from 

tlie very first, and he was de- 



tained for tliree weeks at the 
Canaries by an " accident ' ' — 
supposed to have been pur- 
posely brought about — to the 
rudder of the Pinta. It w^as 
not until the 6th SejDtember 
that the actual voyage of dis- 
covery can be said to have 
commenced. Setting sail that 
day from the island of Gomera 
he passed Ferro, the last of 
the Canaries, on the 9tli. 

As the last traces of land 
faded from the sight of the 
untutored mariners, their 
hearts failed them, and with 
tears and groans they en- 
treated their leader to turn back while there was yet time. The passing of 
a portion of a wreck on the 11th still further aroused their fears, and it was 
all that Colum])us could do to induce them to obey his orders. 

On the 13th September a slight but deeply significant incident occurred. 
Columbus, watching with eager interest the little compass — wdiich, surrounded 
as ht' uas l)y timid, vacillating spirits, must have seemed to him his one 
steadfast, unchangeable friend — noticed a variation in the needle. To quote 
the words of Washington Irving, "he perceived about nightfall that the 
needle, instead of pointing to the north star, varied about lialf a point, or 
between five and six degrees, to the northwest, and still more on the follow- 
ing nioniing." 

Knowing liow greatly this phenomenon would alarm his people, Columbus 
at first k(>i)t it to himself ; but it was soon remarked by the joilots, and their 
repoi-t sent a fresh thrill of horror through the crews. They were entering a 
new world, where the very laws of nature were changing, and in which even 
inanimate oljjects were subject to weird, unearthly influences. 
Calm amid the ever-increasing excitement, Columbus, with greater in- 



KMHAKKATION OF COLUMBUS. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 21 

genuity than penetration, explained away the strange deviation — the cause 
of which has not yet been determined, though many great authorities attrib- 
ute it to solar inliuence — by saying that it was due, not to any fault in the 
compass itself, but to the alteration of the position of the north star. 

Thus, whether he himself did or did not believe this to be the true solution 
of the mystery, did our hero once more calm the terrors of his men, who 
Avere, a little later, further cheered by the sight of a heron and a water- wag- 
tail, which, as birds supposed never to venture far out to sea, were looked 
upon as sure harbingers of land. Next were seen floating patches of herbs 
and weeds, which could only, it was thought, have been washed from river 
banks, or from rocks by the sea-shore ; and, convinced that their perils were 
now over, the eager mariners crowded on deck, each anxious to be the first to 
catch a glimpse of the longed-for country ; but as day after day passed on, 
and no further indications of the end of the voyage were perceived, all the 
old fears returned, the men broke out into open mutiny, and Columbus" s 
position became critical in the extreme. Even Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of 
the most important members of the squadron, now questioned the wisdom of 
the Admiral's determined adherence to a western course ; and our hero, 
though still full of the most intense belief in final success if that course 
were maintained, was beginning to doubt whether he should himself achieve 
more than martyrdom in the cause he had so much at heart. Matters were 
at this stage, when, on the night of the lltli October, 1492, as the weary 
leader was peering into the darkness of the horizon from the deck of his ves- 
sel, hoping against hope to make out some indication of land, no matter how 
vague, he fancied he saw a light. 

Scarcely daring to trust his eyes, he called first one and then another of 
the companions of his venture, each of whom confirmed his opinion. A 
light of some kind was undoubtedly moving on the distant waters, but 
whether it proceeded from some fisherman's bark, or from the long-sought 
land, it was impossible to determine. 

Never was daylight more eagerly longed for than then ; but, hours before 
it came, the suspense of the three watchers on the Santa Maria was relieved 
by the booming of a gun from the Pinta, the signal that others also had 
seen the significant token of the approach to the promised haven. A 
little later, the dark outlines of the shores of an island, relieved against 
white l^reakers, were distinctly made out ; and when the dawn of the 12th 
October, 1492, broke at last, ' ' a level and beautiful island, several leagues in 



2 2 Heroes of .Imeriean Discovery. 

extent, of great fresliness and verdure, and covered Avith trees like a con- 
tinual 'orcliard," lay before the eyes of the astonished mariners. Naked 
natives were hurrying to and fro, expressing by their gestures their astonish- 
ment at tlie appearance of the ships ; and at once ordering the boats to be 
manned. Columbus, scarcely able to restrain his emotion, started to take 
possession, in the name of the monarchs of Castile, of the newly-discovered 
territory. 

No sooner did the hero set foot on shore, than he fell upon his knees, 
ki.ssed the ground, and with tears of joy gave thanks to God for thus enabling 
liini to (•omi)leie his work. Then rising, his heart doubtless swelling with 
exultatit)n, he drew his sword, unfurled the royal banner, named the island 
"San Salvador," and solemnly declared it to be the property of Ferdinand 
and Isabella, "calling on all present to take the oath of obedience to him as 
Admiral and Viceroy representing the persons of the sovereigns." 

Although there is some little difference of opinion as to which of the West 
Indian islands was thus discovered by Columbus, it is generally supposed to 
liave been that now called by the English Cat Island, one of the great Ba- 
hama group, and situated in N. lat. 24°, W. long. 74° 30', of which the 
native name was Guanahamo. Imagining it to be situated at the extremity 
of India, the explorer called its people Indians, an appellation which has 
clung to the aborigines of the New World ever since. 

Remaining at Guanahame only long enough to ascertain the "Indians" 
to be a gentle, friendly, simple people, with well-formed figures, and pleas- 
ant, intelligent faces, Columbus again set sail on the 14th October, and, 
cruising hither and thither, he discovered several other islands, including 
the imi)ortant Cuba and San Domingo, of all of which he took possessioii in 
the name of his patrons, planting a small colony on the last named, and 
meeting everywhere with a cordial welcome fi'om the "savages," though his 
own people gave him a good deal of trouble by their perpetual rivalries and 
jealousies. 

Among these latter troubles, none perhaps affected the Admiral so pain- 
fully as the desertion of Don Alonzo Pinzon. Pinzon had, in the days of 
the discoverer's desi)ondency, stood toward him as a imtron, and, Spanish 
patrician as he was, his countenance had been of no mean value. The very 
fad Jilso that he consented to serve under Columbus must have seemed a 
token of his faithfulness; l)ut they had not long been out at sea before he 
showed that subordiiialion was galling to him, and at last, while Columbus 



Heroes of America ft Discovery. 23 

was exploring Cuba, lie made his escape with La Pinta, the second in size 
of the boats which formed the little fleet. The fact was, that news had come 
to them of rich lands to the North- west, and Pinzon, disappointed that his 
superior would not steer in that direction, resolved to steal away, and go in 
search of a golden empire for himself. But the North-west did as little for 
him as it did for many who came after him, and Columbus encountered him 
again on the return journey, without the gold of which he had dreamed, and 
with his vessel so disabled that it could only reach the shores of Spain with 
difficulty. Indeed, had it not been for the merciful treatment of Columbus, 
the craven Pinzon would probably have i)erished on the waters. 

Satisfied with the results of his first trip, and anxious to obtain the neces- 
sary supplies for the further prosecution of his discoveries, Columbus set sail 
for Europe on the 4tli January, 1493, arriving at the bar of Saltos on the 15th 
March of the same year. Among those who were on the shore to welcome 
the returning hero was Don Perez de Marchina, of whose eager waiting for 
his home-coming the Marquis de Belloy has drawn a touching picture in his 
charming Life of Columbus. We see him for long months spending his 
spare moments in his observatory, anxiously watching for the least shadow 
of a sail upon the horizon. At last he descries a little vessel making its way 
toward Saltos, and he rushes to the harbor, his sudden appearance giving 
to the people of the little town the signal that Columbus is at hand. Soon 
the discoverer is at the shore, and the arms of his " guide, philosopher and 
friend " are the first to embrace him. From Saltos Columbus made his 
way to Barcelona, then the residence of the court, where he was received 
with all the enthusiasm due to one who had added to the kingdom a 
new empire of undetermined extent and apparently boundless wealth. 

More impatient of the delay caused by the rejoicings in his success than he 
had been of the impediments thrown in his way when he had been unable 
to obtain a hearing for his embryo scheme, Columbus lost no time in urging 
on the sovereigns the fitting out of a new expedition, and, six short months 
after his return home, we find him leaving Cadiz with seventeen sliii:>s and 
1,500 men. This second voyage resulted in the discovery of the Caribbee 
Islands and Jamaica. 

But in the midst of his work among the West Indian Islands, the Ad- 
miral was recalled home to answer terrible charges— of untruthfulness in his 
descriptions of the countries discovered, and of cruelty to the natives and 
colonists under his charge — brought against him by his enemies. Although 



^4 



Hci'ocs of American Discovery. 



he succeedod in clearing liiniself for a time, to the satisfaction of Ferdinand 
and Isabella, from tlie odious suspicions which had been cast upon him, the 




COLUMBUS IN CHAINS. 



rest of his life was one long struggle with persecution and adversity. From 
his third voyage, in which he discovered Trinidad, and landed atPniia, on 



Heroes of American Discovery. 25 

the coast of South America, he was sent home in chains. We only linger a 
moment by the manacled hero to quote once more from Tennyson's 
''Columbus." 

, You know 

The flies at Lome that ever swarm about. 

And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down 

Truth in the distance — lliese outbuzzed me so. 

That even our prudent king, our righteous queen — 

I prayed them, being so calumniated, 

They would commission one of weight and worth 

To judge between my slandered self and me — 

Fonseca, my main enemy at their court. 

They send me out his tool, Bovadilla, one » 

As ignorant and impolitic as a beast — 

Blockish irreverence, brainless greed — who sack d 

My dwelling, seized upon my papers, loos'd 

My captives, fee'd the rebels of the crown. 

Sold tlie crown-farms for all but nothing, gave 

All but free leave for all to work the mines. 

Drove me and my good brothers home in chains ; 

And gathering ruthless gold — a single piece 

Weighed nigh four thousand castillanos — so 

They tell me — weigh'd him down into the abysm. 

The hurricane of the latitude on liim fell, 

The seas of our discovering over-roll 

Him and his gold ; the frailer caravel. 

With what was mine, came happily to the shore. 

There was a glimmering of God's hand." 

Soon after the conclusion of his fourth and last voyage, Columbus died at 
Valladolid in poverty and disgrace, leaving others — many of whom he had 
himself trained to be able navigators — to reap the fruits of his labors. 

One of the first explorers to follow in the track of Columbus was Amerigo 
Vespucci, whose name, for some reason not very clearly made out, was be- 
stowed on the land discovered by his great predecessor. The work of Amerigo 
was, however, almost entirely confined to the southern half of the vast con- 
tinent called after him, although he is supposed to have sailed without land- 
ing as far north as Chesapeake Bay ; and we therefore pass on to the Calxjts, 
one of whom appears to have been the first European of modern times to set 
foot in North America. 



26 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



In 1406, Henry YII. of England, intent on finding that short cut to India 
which it was so eagerly hoped would open to Europe the commerce of the 




AMKRIGO VESPUCCI, 



East, a 1 (pointed John Cabot to the command of five vessels, with orders 
thoroughly to ejcplore the western portion of the Atlantic Ocean, and ''find 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



27 



whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels, 
whatsoever they be, and in what part 
of the world soever they be, which 
before this time have been unknown 
to Christians" — a wide commission 
truly, which was carried out, so far as 
we can tell from the masses of con- 
flicting evidence before us, by the sail- 
ing from Bristol, in 1497, of a single 
sliij), the Matthew^ with John Cabot 
as commander, and his three sons, 
Ludovico, Sebastiano, and Sanzio, 
among the subordinate members of 
the expedition. 

Sailing due west, as the most direct 
mode of carrying out his instructions, 
John Cabot came in sight, on the 
24th June, 1497, of the mainland of 
America ; but whether the portion first 
seen was Cape Breton, Newfoundland, 
or Labrador, is undetermined. With- 
out making any attempt to land, the navigators contented themselves with 
sailing along some three hundred leagues of the coast, and returned home 
to be received with as much enthusiasm as if they had fulfilled the whole of 
their mission, and to be rewarded for finding the "New Isle " with the muni- 
ficent sum of £10. 

A second and a third voyage appear to have been undertaken by John 
Cabot, with no better results than the first ; but after his death— about 1499 
— his son Sebastian, who had long been endeavoring to secure the co-opera- 
tion of Ferdinand of Spain for an extensive scheme of exploration in the 
North, came to England, and was appointed by the reigning monarch to the 
command of an expedition to Labrador. 

On this trip Sebastian landed several times on different parts of the north- 
eastern coast of America, and penetrated as far north as 67 1-2°, in his vain 
quest for that ignis fatuus of his day— the North-west Passage to India ; 
but at last, his provisions failing him, he was compelled to return to Bristol, 
bringing with him, as his only trophies, some of the natives of districts visited. 




CABOT BEFORE THE COSMOGRAFHERS. 



28 



Htrocs of American Discovery. 



This undoubted discovery 
of the mainland of America, 
the date of -which isvarionsly 
given by different authorities, 
important as it in reality Avas, 
led to no very definite results. 
In 1500, a trip was made from 
Portugal to the North-east by 
a certain Gaspar Cortereal, 
who, though nominally in 
quest of the north-west pass- 
age, seems to have made 
the acquisition of slaves his 
main object. He penetrated 
as far north as 50°, and landed 
on the shores of what is now 
New Brunswick, naming it 
Terra de Labrador, or the 
"land of laborers," a title 
subsequently transferred to a 
strip of the seaboard further 
north. Enticing some lifty- 
seven of the natives — who 
are described as "like gip- 
sies in coloi', well-made, intelligent, and modest" — on board his vessels, 
he returned with them to Portugal, and, having sold them, started on a new 
trip shortly afterward, from which he never returned ; but history is silent 
as to whether he fell a victim to the perils of the sea or to the vengeance of 
those he wronged. 

Tn 1502, Miguel Cortereal, a younger brother of the inhuman Gasjiar, 
started in search of the missing vessel, but he too disappeared, leaving no 
trace l)ehind him ; and when an expedition, sent out by the King of Portu- 
gal to ascertain the fate of the voyagers, returned with no tidings of either 
sliij\ it was resolved that the fatal latitudes should henceforth be avoided. 
For th«' next few years tlie north-east coasts of the western continent were 
visited by none ])ut certain venturesome fishermen of Brittany, whose mem- 
ory still lives in the name of Cape Breton, but who, thinking only of secur- 




SEBASTIAN CABOT. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



29 



ing to tliemselves the harvest of the new-found seas, added next to nothing 
to our geograjjhical knowledge ; though John Denys of Honlieur is said to 
have explored the whole of the present Gulf of St. Lawrence. 




INDIAN BOATS. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC, AND THE EARLY EXPLORATION OF FLORIDA. 




UALbOA DISCOVKRING TUK I'AOIFIC OCEAN. 



TO atone for the 
sudden check 
in the progress of 
discovery in the 
North, mentioned in 
our previous chap- 
ter, we find the 
Spanish vigorously 
prosecuting their 
explorations in the 
Gulf of Mexico, 
bent, like other na- 
tions, on finding a 
new passage to 
India, though con- 
vinced that it lay, 
not among the 
snow and ice of the 
Arctic regions, but 
in more southerly 
latitudes. 

Ignorant of the 
important fact, that 
the land barring 
their progress west- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 31 

ward formed part of one vast continent, one liardy Spanish mariner after 
another wasted his strength in seeking for some channel between the so- 
called islands hemming in his bark on this side and on that, until at last the 
mystery was solved by a freebooter named Vasco Nunez de Balboa, whose 
romantic story must be given here, forming as it does an era in the history 
of the whole of the New World. 

Nothing could well have been more inauspicious than the commencement 
of the voyage of the first European who set eyes on the Pacific Ocean, One 
of the earliest settlers in San Domingo, Vasco Nunez de Balboa was so un- 
successful in his tilling of the soil that he soon found himself in absolute 
destitution, and, hoping to elude his creditors, he managed to hide himself 
in a vessel bound for the Caribbean Sea, at that time a favorite resort of 
pirates and adventurers of every description. 

When out of sight of land, Balboa ventured forth from his cask, and, fall- 
ing on his knees before the captain, Enciso by name, entreated him to pro- 
tect him and let him share in the expedition. Enraged at so flagrant a de- 
fiance of his authority as the concealment of a man on board his ship, Enciso 
at first threatened to put our hero ashore on some desert island and abandon 
him to starve, but finally, softened by his eloquent pleadings, he consented 
that he should work oat his passage. To this leniency Enciso soon after- 
ward owed the safety of himself and all his people. His vessel was wrecked 
on the coast of the Isthmus of Darien, and Nunez, who had visited the dis- 
trict in his early wanderings, led the Spaniards to a friendly Indian village 
on the Darien. 

Life was, however, all Balboa chose to accord to the man to whom he owed 
his own rescue from a miserable death. Arrived at the village, he accom- 
plished the deposition of Enciso, and his own appointment to the supreme 
command. Then, having learned in various preliminary excursions that, six 
days' journey to the west, there lay another sea, he led his men in the direc- 
tion indicated, and, after literally fighting his way, step by step, through 
tribes of hostile Indians, he came, on the IStli of September, 1513, to the 
foot of a high mountain, from which his guides assured him the sea could be 
seen. 

Imbued, in spite of his rough freebooting nature, with something of the 
true spirit of an explorer, Balboa now ordered his followers to wait, while he 
made the ascent alone. Arrived on the brow of the hill, he looked down, and 
beheld beneath him the wide-stretching ocean, lighted up by the brilliant rays 



32 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



of a tropical sun. Forgetting his lust of gain, and the crimes which had led 
him to liis present position, lie now thoiiglit only of the solution by his 
means of the problem which had so long baffled men of science of every na- 
tionality, and, falling on his knees, he gave thanks to God that it had 
l)leased Him " to reserve unto that day the victory and praise of so great a 
thing unto him." 

This act of worship over, Nunez summoned his followers to gaze upon the 
wonderful sight and ordered them to pile up stones, as a token that he took 
possession of the land in the name of his sovereign, Ferdinand of Castile. 

His next stej:) was to send twelve 
of his men — one of whom was the 
great Pizarro, future conqueror of 
Peru — to find the best route to the 
Pacific coast, himself following 
more leisurely with the body of 
his forces. 

The twelve pioneers quickly 
came to the beach, and, finding 
a couple of native canoes fioating 
inshore, two of them, named Alonzo 
Martin and Blazede Abienza, 
sprung into them, calling to their 
comrades to bear witness that they 
were the first Europeans to embark 
upon the southern sea. Thus, on 
September 29, 1513, was completed 
the first discovery of the great Pa- 
cific Ocean, of which Columbus 
had heard from the natives in his various voyages, though he had never 
been able to reach it, and which, first crossed by Magellan in 1621, has ever 
since been an inexhaustible field for the efforts of explorers, and is as- 
sociated with the names of Cook, Anson, D'Entrecasteaux, Vancouver, Kot- 
zebue, and many other great navigators of modern times. 

The discoverer of the Pacific, like so many of the heroes of his day, did 
not live to reap the fruits of his work. He won the appointment of Adelan- 
tado^ or governor of the ocean he had been the first to see — an office giving 
him, though neither he nor his sovereign was aware of it, authority over 




I'lLlNCIS nZARUO. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



33 



But five short years after the 




some 80,000,000 square miles of land and sea ! 
eventful 13th Seji- 
tember, he was be- 
lieaded by order of 
the Spanish Gov- 
ernor of Darien, 
Peter Anias, wlio 
api)earsto liave been 
jealous of his su- 
perior popularity, 
and to have feared 
his growing power. 

As was natural, 
the work of Balboa 
led to the fitting 
out of numerous 
expeditions, not 
only to the southern 
seas, but to the dis- 
tricts north of the death of Magellan. 
Isthmus of Darien, which, according to native rumor, were rich in gold and 
precious stones. Leaving the stofy of the progress of discovery southwards 
for the present, we go on to the first successor of Nunez entitled to rank 
among the heroes of the North, the Spaniard, Juan Ponce de Leon, who, 
when Governor of Puerto Rico, was induced, by the traditions afloat among 
the natives of the West Indies of the existence of a Fountain of Youth in the 
North, to lead an expedition in that direction, which resulted in the discov- 
ery of Florida. 

Whether, at the time of his adventure, De Leon was old, and anxious to 
regain his youth, or young, and eager to retain it, history does not say. We 
only know that he made it the object of his life to discover the marvelous re- 
gion containing the magic fountain, and set sail for that purpose with three 
caravels on the 3d March, 1512, accompanied by a numerous band of gen- 
tlemen, eager to share with their leader the glories of immortality. 

After a month's sail in a north-westerly direction, De Leon came in sight 
of a country, *•' covered with flowers and verdure," and, as it happened to be 
Easter Sunday, he named the new land Pasena de Flores, or Pasqua Florida, 



34 



Hi 



erocs 



of A 



merua7i Discovery. 



that being the Spanish njinie for the festival so inseparably connected with 
lioral (h'coiations. On tlie 2(1 A juil the explorers landed at the jjoint now 
called Fernandina, considerably further north than the modern boundary be- 
tween Floiida and (T(M)rgia— the term Florida having been at first loosely 
applietl to all the districts on the north-east of the Uulf of Mexico. Owing 
to the hostility of the natives, De Leon and his men were, however, soon 




A HAYOU IN FLORIDA. 



compelled to return to their ships, but they spent some time in cruising up 
and down both sides of the piMiinsula, making flying visits in-shoi-e, in hope 
of extricating inl'ormation from the Indians as to the i)osition of the coveted 
Fountain of Youth. In this quest their failnic was complete ; but when at 
last c()mi)elled to return to Puerto Rico, they were rewarded for their long 
wanderings by the discovery of the Bahamas on their voyage btu-k. 
As usual in such cases, De Leon received the appoint uient of Adelantado 



Heroes of American Discovery, 35 

of the country he had visited, weighted, however, with the condition tliat 
he should colonize it. With this end in view, and perhaps also with a hope 
of yet renewing his strength at the magic well, he returned to Florida in 
1521, only to fall a victim in a struggle with some Indians who opposed his 
landing, and greeted their would-be governor with a shower of jjoisoned ar- 
rows. 

Between the first and last visit of De Leon to Florida, several heroes of 
Central American discovery touched on the coast of the newly-found district, 
on their way to and from Mexico; and in 1518, Francis Garay, for some 
time Governor of Jamaica, cruised along the whole of the shores of North 
America bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, i)assing the mouths of the Missis- 
sippi, called by the Indians the Miche Sepe, or Father of Waters, and by the 
Spaniards the Rio del Espirito Santo, or the River of the Holy Ghost. Re- 
fraining from landing on account of the " little hospitable " appearance of 
the country, Garay contented himself with drawing a maj) of the coast-line, 
whi(;h he very accurately describes as " bending like a bow," adding that a 
line drawn from the most southerly point of Florida to the northernmost 
headland of Yucatan " would make the string of the bow." 

The next European to visit Florida was Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who set 
out with two ships from Cuba, in 1520, bound on a quest for a land called 
Chicoru, said to exist to the north of Florida, and to contain within its limits 
a sacred stream, whose waters possessed powers similar to those of the 
Fountain of Youth. Landing between 32° and 33° N. latitude, De Ayllon 
was h'Ospital)ly received by the simple natives, who crowded on to his vessels, 
and gazed with wondering, child-like eyes at all the new wonders before them. 
Leaving the poor creatures unmolested until he had gained their confidence, 
the crafty Spaniard amused himself for a time with excursions on the banks 
of a river to which he gave the name of the Jordan, and when he had in- 
duced 130 Indians to go on board, he suddenly returned to the ships, and 
gave orders for the anchors to be weighed, and set sail for Cuba. 

The agony of the captives, when they saw the shores of their native land 
receding from before them, and realized that return was impossible, i)assed 
description. Only dimly did they understand that their fate was to work 
for the white men ; and when a fierce storm arose, and one vessel was swal- 
lowed up, with all its inmates, by the waves, the survivors may perhaps have 
thought that tlui home from which their strange captors came was beneath 
the ocean. However that maybe, but few of the Indians on the second ship 



36 



Heroes of Aiuej'icaii Discovery. 



lived to reacli New SiKiiii, and wIkmi flitMv, tlunr services were of little nsetc 
their master, who, disappointed in his lirsl venture, lost no time in organiz- 
ing a new and more formidable expedition, consisting of several vessels, 
liaving on board a force of some five hundred men. 

After much beating about on the coast north of Florida, during which one 
pilot is said to have gone mad with vexation at being unable to iind the Jor- 




HAVANA nAKBOR (CL Ba). 



dan, De Ayllon landed at a spot near his first encampment, and, to his sur- 
prise, was received with enthusiasm by the Indians, who, proving them- 
selves apt pupils of their tirst European teachers, feasted him and liis men 
until they were completely deceived. 

On the tifth day after the landing, when the white men were sleejiing off 
the effects of their orgies, the Indians rose en masse and murdered them all. 
Then, turning their attention to the vessels lying at anchor, they attacked 
the sailors with their poisoned arrows, killing many of them, but failing to 
prevent the escape of a little remnant, who carried home the story of the ill- 
fated expedition. Whether De Ayllon himself perished on land or at sea is 



Heroes of ^hfien'can Discovery, 37 

unknown ; but it is certain that he never returned, and, to quote a quaint old 
chronicler whose narrative is among those preserved by the Hakluyt So- 
ciety, "he was lost .... leaving nothing done worthy of memorie." 

After this tragic conclusion of an unworthy career, Florida and its people 
were left undisturbed for several years, though some further details of the 
configuration of its eastern coast were given in 1624 by Yerrazano of Flor- 
ence, who sailed from the point of the peninsula as far north as Cape Breton, 
and whose experiences on the Atlantic seaboard are given below. The brief 
respite enjoyed by the unfortunate natives was, however, but a lull before a 
more terrible storm of invasion than any with which they had yet had to 
cope, for in 1528, seven years after the death of De Ayllon, Pamphilo de 
Narvaez, inflamed by the exaggerated accounts given by the survivors of pre- 
vious expeditions as to the wealth of Florida, obtained permission from 
Charles V. of Germany to take possession of it in his name. 

Leaving Spain in the autumn of 1527, with live ships and a force of some 
600 men, Narvaez arrived, after many delays, in the Bay of Tampa, on the 
west coast of Florida, in February, 1528. Landing with half of his forces, 
the leader at once commenced his march to the interior, in spite of the re- 
monstrances of some of the chief officers, who feared that if he once lost 
sight of his vessels he would never see them again. Remembering the ex- 
perience of Cortes, Narvaez hoped to find a second wealthy nation to plun- 
der ; but his disappointment and dismay may be imagined when, instead of 
any indications of advanced civilization, he met only with vast swamps and 
forests teeming with naked savages, who, though they melted away at his 
approach, and eluded his vengeance as if by magic, hung about in the rear of 
his army, harassing his every movement, and j^icking njD the stragglers for 
private murder and tortures worse than death. 

Buoyed up through all his miseries, however, by the rumors which met 
him at every turn of the existence in the north of a district called Apalachen, 
where gold was to be had for the asking, Narvaez still pressed on, to be re- 
warded at last, after months of Aveary marching by arriving at a miserable 
Indian village of some forty houses — supposed to have been somewhere near 
the mouth of the Apalacha river, flowing from the Apalachian mountains of 
Georgia — from which all the able-bodied inhabitants had fled. ''This," said 
the Indian guides — who, taken prisoners by the way, had been forced to 
give their unwilling services to the intruders — " this is Apalachen ; it is here 
that the gold you long for is to be found." 



38 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Unwilling even yet to own himself beaten, Narvaez took possession of the 
village, and gave his men permission to remove their armor and rest, intending 
the next morning to test the truth of the guides' assurance that game and 
gold were plentiful in the neighboring woods. But the craft of the Indian 
had once more supplied his want of strength to cope with the white man. 
So soon as the Spaniards were asleep in the miserable wigwams they had 
seized, the savages gathered round them with stealthy tread, and set fire to 
their temporary resting-places. Many who escaped the flames fell victims to 
the poisoned arrows let fly with unerring aim from ambushes on every 
side, and when the morning broke, the few survivors, including Narvaez 
himself, determined to return to the sea by the shortest route the}^ could 
find. 

A fortnight's hard fighting with enemies and obstacles innumerable 
brought a still further diminished remnant to Xh^ beach, far from the place 
they had left their five vessels ; and with the savages behind them, and the 
sea before them, the luckless explorers resolved to build some boats, and 
trust themselves to the mercy of the waves rather than to that of man. Five 
crazy barks were constructed with infinite difiiculty, and in them the few 
men still alive embarked. 

Not daring to venture into the open sea, the explorers, who knew nothing 
of navigation, paddled slowly along the shores of the modern state of Ala- 
bama, and in about six weeks reached the mouths of the Mississippi in 
safety ; but there a violent storm overtook them and four of the boats, in- 
cluding that containing Narvaez himself, were lost. The fifth, with Cabeca 
de Vaca (who was originally treasurer to the expedition) on board, had a nar- 
row escape ; but the greater number of men in her reached the land, where 
they were, strange to say, kindly received by the natives. A little later, 
stragglers from the other boats, who had saved their lives by swimming, ar- 
rived, and, joining forces, the adventurers started for the western coast on 
foot, hoping to reach the Mexican province of Sonora, which had already 
been colonized by the Spaniards. 

Four only of the original party survived to reach the western coast, and 
these four, of whom Cabeca de Vaca — who seems to have borne a charmed 
life — was one, were held in captivity by the Indians l<jng years before they 
were able to effect their escnpe. Great indeed was the surprise of the colon- 
ists on the shores of the Gulf of (/alifornia, when the little party of bronzed 
[ind half-leaked wanderers, speaking their own tongue, appeared at the out- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



39 



posts of the little mining settlement ; and when their identity with the long- 
lost explorers was i)roved, enthusiasm knew no bounds. 

Eager to return to their own land, however, the heroes lost no time in tak- 
ing ship for Europe, and on the 13th August, 1537, nine years after the start- 
ing of the original expedition, they arrived in Lisbon, to meet there with a 
yet more eager recei^tion than in Sonora. 

The excitement caused by the wonderful tales of their captivity, told by 
Cabeca and his comrades, Avas, as may be imagined, intense. Far from damp- 
ing the ardor of others for exploration and colonization, the pictures called 
up by their narrative of hairbreadth escapes, of the magic influence exercised 
on whole tribes of dusky warriors by a single white man, of the weird growths 
of the tropical forests, and of the wild beauty of the Indian maidens, created 
a passion for adventure among the youth of Spain. When, therefore, the 
renowned Hernando de Soto, who had been in close attendance on Pizarro 
throughout his romantic career in Peru, asked for and obtained permission 
from Ferdinand of Spain to take possession of Florida in his name, hundreds 
of volunteers of every rank flocked to his stan- 
dard. Narvaez had failed for want of knowl- 
edge as to how to deal Avith the natives ; 
doubtless the land of gold could yet be found 
by those who knew how to wrest the secret 
of its position from the sons of the soil ; 
and so once more a gallant company set 
forth from Spain to measure their strength 
against the craft of the poor Indians of 
Florida. 

De Soto, who was in the flrst place appointed 
Governor of Cuba, that he might turn to ac- 
count the resources of that wealthy island, sailed 
from Havana, with a fleet of nine vessels 
and a force of some six or seven hundred 
men, on the 18th May, 1539, and cast anchor in Tampa Bay on the 30th of 
the same month. Landing his forces at once, the leader gave orders that 
they should start foi- the interior immediatel3% by tlie same route as that 
taken by his unfortunate predecessor ; and the nu^n were eagerly plowino- 
their way through the sandy, marshy districts iiuniediately beyond the 
beach, driving the natives who opposed their progress before them, when 




DE SOTO. 



40 Heroes of American Discovery. 

one of those romantic instances occurred, in which the early history of the 
New World is so remarkably rich. 

A white man on horseback rode forward from among the dusky savages, 
wlio liailed the approach of the troops with wild gestures of delight, and 
turned out to be a Spaniard named Juan Ortiz, who had belonged to the 
Narvaez expedition, and had been unable to effect his escape with his com- 
rades. In his captivity among the Indians he had acquired a thorough 
knowledge of their language, and his services alike as a mediator and a guide 
were soon found to be invaluable. 

The story of his adventures, as told by Ortiz, rivaled even that of Cabeca 
in thrilling interest. He had been captured soon after the landing of his 
party by a chief named Ucita, who decided that he should be burned alive 
by a slow fire, as a sacrifice to the Evil Spirit. A rough stage was therefore 
set up on four posts ; Ortiz, bound hand and foot, was laid upon it ; 
the tire was kindled beneath him, and he resigned himself to the linger- 
ing agonies of a shameful death. Around him on every side gathered his 
enemies, eager to watch his dying contortions. Their shouts of triumph 
rung upon his ears, and broke in upon his muttered prayers to the God who 
alone could help him in his extremity. . . . Was he dreaming that the 
bitter cries were hushed in answer to his appeal ?— that those whose duty it 
was to feed the flames were pausing in their task ? No, it was no dream ; 
the daughter of the chieftain was kneeling at her father's feet, pleading, in 
tones as soft as ever fell from the lips of Spanish maiden, for the life of the 
stranger. Jt was but a little gift she asked, and, in granting it, would not 
her father win honor among the tribes ? Would not a living prisoner of 
a strange race be a brighter gem in a chieftain's crown than the corpse of a 
dead enemy \ Touched by his child's entreaties, or more convinced by her 
arguments, Ucita relented. Ortiz was removed from the stage, and informed 
by signs that he must henceforth consider himself as a slave. In captivity 
therefore he remained, to be the hero, three years later, of a second roman- 
tic adventure, when he was again condemned to be burned, and again rescued 
by the chieftain's daughter, who warned him of his danger in time, and ltd 
him to the camp of another chieftain, under whose jirotection he remained 
until the arrival of his fellow-countrymen. Hoav the devotion of the Indian 
girl was rewarded we have been unable to ascertain, for, with the character- 
istic egotism of the Spanish adventurers, Ortiz dwells in his narrative only 
on his own escapes, and with his acceptance of the second chieftain's pro- 



Hci''oes of American Discovery. 41 

tection, or rather liis entry into his service as a slave, the poor maiden dis- 
appears from the stor3\ 

Led by Ortiz, De Soto and his army made their way, slowly and with dif- 
ficulty, in a north-easterly direction, till they came to the east of the Bay 
of Apalachen, a little beyond the mouth of the Flint, where the peninsula 
of Florida joins the mainhmd of the United States. Here the camp was 
pitched for the winter ; messages were sent to Cuba for fresh supplies of men 
and provisions, and exploring parties were dispatched to reconnoiter the 
land on either side. The discovery of the harbor of Pensacola on the west 
was the only result of any importance achieved, and early in the spring of 
ths following year, 1540, the march was resumed, this time under the guid- 
ance of a native, who said he would take the white men to a far country, 
governed by a woman, and abounding in a yellow metal, which was used for 
making all manner of ornaments, etc. This metal could be none other than 
gold ; and, with fresh hope in their hearts, the exi:)lorers ]3ressed on. 

Following a north-easterly direction, the wanderers soon entered the dis- 
trict now known as Georgia, and, crossing the Altamaha river on its way 
to the Atlantic, they left the low alluviiil lands and swamps of the coast on 
their right, and struggled on over the rough hilly country gradually sloping 
up to the Blue Ridge mountains belonging to the Alleghany or Apalachian 
range, the El Dorado for which they Avere seeking ever receding as they 
advanced, while their course was everywhere marked by blood and pillage. 

His own conduct to the unfortunate natives giving him no right to expect 
any thing but treachery from them, De Soto soon began to entertain sus- 
picions of the fidelity of his guide. Perhaps, after all, he was only leading 
him into an ambush of dusky warriors. He would try and extract further 
information from some of the captives in his hands. Four poor creatures 
were therefore brought before the leader for examination, and the* first ques- 
tioned replied that he knew of no such country as that so eagerly sought. 

Enraged at this answer, so unlike what he hoped for, De Soto ordered the 
wretched man to be burned alive, and the sight of his terrible death so inspired 
his companions that, when their turn came to be examined, they vied with 
each other in the descriptions they gave of the fertility and wealth of the 
land on the north. Again deceived, and that with a readiness only to be 
accounted for by the conswming lust for gold which blinded his understand- 
ing, the leader ordered the march to be resumed, and in the spring of 1540 
he was met by an Indian queen, who, hearing of his approach, had hastened 



42 Heroes of American Discovery. 

to welcome him, hoping perhaps to conciliate him, and save herself and her 
subjects from the usual fate of the natives at the hands of the white men. 

Very touching is the account given by the old chroniclers of the meeting 
between the poor cacica and De Soto. Alighting from the litter in which 
she had traveled, carried by four of her subjects, the dusky princess came 
forward with gestures expressive of pleasure at the arrival of her guest, and 
taking from her own neck a heavy double string of pearls, she hung it on 
that of the Spaniard. Bowing with courtly grace, De Soto accepted the 
gift, and for a short time he kept up the semblance of friendship ; but having 
obtained from the queen all the information he wanted, he made her his 
prisoner, and robbed her and her people of all the valuables they possessed, 
including large numbers of pearls found chiefly in the graves of natives of 
distinction. We are glad to be able to add that the poor queen effected her 
escape from the guards, taking with her a box of pearls which she had 
managed to regain, and on which De Soto had set especial store. 

The home of the cacica appears to have been situated close to the Atlantic 
seaboard, and to have been among the villages visited by De Ayllon twenty 
years previously, the natives having in their possession a dagger and a string 
of beads, probably a rosary, which they said had belonged to the white 
men. Unwdlling to go over old ground, the Spaniards now determined to 
alter their course, and taking a north-westerly direction, they reached, in 
the course of a few months, the first spurs of the lofty Apalachian range, 
the formidable aspect of which so damped their courage, that they turned 
back and wandered into the lowlands of what is now Alabama, ignorant 
that in the very mountains they so much dreaded were hidden large quan- 
tities of that yellow metal they had sought so long and so vainly. 

The autumn of 1540 found the party, their numbers greatly diminished, 
at a large village called Mavilla, close to the site of the modern Mobile, (N. 
lat. 30° 40', W. long. 80°), where the natives were gathered in considerable 
force ; and it soon became evident that an attempt would be made to exact 
vengeance for the long course of oppression of which the white intruders 
had been guilty in their two years' wanderings. 

Intending to take possession of Mavilla in his usual high-handed manner, 
De Soto and a few of his men entered the palisades forming its defenses, 
accompanied by the cacique, who, meek enough until he was within reach 
of his warriors, then tui'ned upon his guests with some insulting speech, and 
disappeared in a neighboring house. A dispute then ensued between a 



Heroes of American Discovery. 43 

minor chief and one of the Spaniards. The latter enforced his view of the 
matter at issue by a blow with his cutlass, and in an instant the town was in 
a commotion. From every house poured showers of arrows, and in a few 
minutes nearly all the Christians were slain. De Soto and a few others 
escaped, and, calling his forces together, the Spanish governor quickly in- 
vested the town. 

A terrible conflict, lasting nine hours, ensued, in which, as was almost 
inevitable, the white men were finally victorious, though not until they had 
lost many valuable lives and nearly all their property. Mavilla was burned to 
;ishes ; and when the battle was over, the Spaniards found themselves in an 
:i\vful situation — at a distance from their ships, without food or medicines, 
md surrounded on all sides by enemies rendered desperate by defeat. The 
cjmmon soldiers, too, had by this time had enough of exploration, and were 
i>;iger to return to the coast, there to await the return of the vessels which 
I Lid been sent to Cuba for supplies. Evading the poor fellows' questions as 
to his plans, however, De Soto, who had received secret intelligence that his 
tld8t was even now awaiting him in the Bay of Pensacola, but six days' 
journey from Mavilla, determined to make one more effort to redeem his 
honor by a discovery of importance. With this end in view, he led his 
disheartened forces northward, and in December reached a small village 
belonging to Chickasaw Indians, in the state of Mississippi, supposed to 
have been situated about N. lat. 32° 53', W. long. 90° 23'. 

In spite of constant petty hostilities with the Indians, the winter, which 
^vas severe enough for snow to fall, passed over peaceably ; but with the 
beginning of spring, the usual arbitrary proceedings were resorted to by De 
Soto for procuring porters to carry his baggage in his next trip, and this led 
to a second terrible fight, in which the Spaniards were worsted, and narrowly 
escaped extermination. Had the Indians followed up their victory, not a 
white man would have escaped to tell the tale ; but they seem to have been 
frightened at their owti success, and to have drawn back just as they had 
their persecutors at their feet. 

Rallying the remnant of his forces, and supplying the place of the uni- 
forms which had been carried off by the enemy with skins and mats of ivy 
leaves, De Soto now led his strangely transformed folloAvers in a north- 
westerly direction, and, completely crossing the modern state of Mississippi, 
arrived in May on the banks of the mighty river from which it takes its 
name, in about N, lat, 3ri°, 



44 



Heroes of /Imerican Discovery. 



Thus took place the discovery of the great Father of Waters, rolling by 
in unconscious majesty on its way from its distant birthplace in Minnesota 
to its final home in the Gulf of Mexico. To De Soto, however, it was no 
geographical phenomenon, inviting him to trace its course and solve the 
secret of its origin, but a sheet of water, "half a league over," impeding 
his progress, and his first care was to obtain boats to get to the other side. 




DB SOTO DISCOVERING THE MISSISSIPPI. 



The Chickasaw Indians, relieved, doubtless, at the prospect of getting rid 
of the intruders, gladly led them to one of the ordinary crossing-places, but 
the native canoes found there were not fit for the transportation of horses, 
and a month was consumed in building barges, during which visits were paid 
to the strangers by Aquixo, the cacique of the Dakota tribe dwelling on the 
other side of the Miche Sepe, who would gladly have made friends with his 
white brother, had not De Soto met his advances by killing the first of his 
followers who landed near his camp. 

By this short-sighted policy the Spanish leader once more defeated liis 
own purpose, and when the transit of the Mississippi was at last effected, his 



Heroes of Ai)iericaii Discovery. 



45 



march along the western banks was harassed by the constant hostility of the 
natives. In the course of the summer, however, after a dreary struggle 
through the morasses above the landing-stage, he came to the dryer and lof- 
tier regions of Missouri, where the natives took him and his men for Chil- 
dren of the Sun, and brought out their blind to be restored to sight. 

For once, De Soto refrained to inflict any injury on the simple believers in 
his divine mission. Perhaps some dim vision of what he might have been 
to the untutored savages, had he been true to his own creed, flitted across 




SCENE ON TUB MISSISSIPPI AT THE PRESENT BAY. 



his mind. In any case, we find the stern, unrelenting, bloodthirsty man 
assuming for a moment the character of a preacher of the Gospel, pointing 
to a cross he had set up on an Indian mound, and telling the Indians to i^ray 
only to God in Heaven for what they needed. Nay more, he condescended 
to try to explain to them the mystery of the Atonement, and was so far sue- 



46 Heroes of American Discovery. 

cessfiil, tliat cliief and subj(M*ts kneeled with him and his men at the foot of 
the sign of our redemption, and listened without interruption to the prayers 
put up to the God of the white men. 

The service over, De Soto asked for instructions as to the best route to fol- 
low in his untiring quest for gold ; and, acting in accordance with the 
answers he received, he seems to have turned away from the Mississippi, 
and, in August, 1541, to have reached the highlands of the south-west of 
Missouri, near the White River, crossing which, he journeyed southward 
through Arkansas, and set up his camp for the winter about the site of the 
present Little Rock (N. lat. 34° 45', AV. long. 92° 13'). Bent on resuming 
his researches in the ensuing spring, though worn out by continual wander- 
ings and warfare, and deprived by death of his chief helper, Juan Ortiz, the 
indomitable explorer now endeavored to win over the Indians by claiming 
supernatural i)o\vers, and declai'ing himself immortal ; biit it was too late to 
inaugurate a new policy. The spot chosen for encampment turned out to 
be unhealthy ; the white men began to succumb to disease ; scouts sent out 
to explore the neighborhood for a more favorable situation brought back 
rumors of howling wildernesses, impenetrable woods, and, worst of all, of 
stealthy bands of Indians creeping uji from every side to hem in and destroy 
the little knot of white men. 

Thus driven to bay, De Soto, who was now himself either attacked by dis- 
ease or broken down by all he liad undergone, determined at least to die 
like a man ; and, calling the survivors of his once gallant company about 
him, he asked pardon for the evils he had brought upon those who had 
trusted in him, and named Luis Moscoso de Alvarado as his successor. 

On the following daj% May 21, 1542, the unfortunate hero breathed his 
last, and was almost immediately buried secretly without the gates of tlu> 
camp, Alvarado fearing an immediate onslaught from the natives should the 
death of the hero who had claimed immortality be discovered. The newly- 
made grave, however, excited suspicion, and, finding it impossible to pre- 
vent it from being rifled by the inquisitive savages, Alvarado had the corpse 
of his predecessor removed from it in the night, wrapped in cloths made 
heavy with sand, and dropped from a boat into the Mississipi)i, 

The midnight funeral over, all further queries from the natives, as to what 
had become of the Child of the Sun, were answered by an assurance that he 
had gone to heaven for a time, but would soon return. Then, while the 
expected return was still waited for, the camp was broken up as quietly as 



Heroes of American Discovery. 47 

possible, and Alvarado led liis peoj)le westward, hoping, as Cabega had 
done before him, to reach the Pacific coast. 

But Jong months of wandering in pathless prairies bringing him appar- 
ently no nearer to the sea, and dreading to be overtaken in the wilderness 
by the winter, he turned back and retraced his steps to the Mississippi, 
where he once more pitched his camp, and spent six months in building 
boats, in which he hoped to go down the river to its outlet in the Gulf of 
Mexico. In this bold scheme he was successful. The embarkation into 
seven roughly-constructed brigantines took place on the 2d July, 1543, and 
a voyage of seventeen days, between banks lined with hostile Indians, who 
plied them unceasingly with their poisoned arrows, brought a few haggard, 
half-naked survivors to the longed-for gulf. Fifty days later, after a weary 
cruise along the rugged coast of what is now Louisiana and Texas, a party, still 
further reduced, landed at the Spanish settlement of Panuco, in Mexico, 
where they were received as men risen from the dead. 

In spite of the disastrous conclusion of so many expeditions to the ill-fated 
''Land of Plowers," there were not wanting many adventurers still eager 
to try their fortunes in the newiy-discovered districts. The first hero of note 
to succeed De Soto was a Dominican priest named Louis Cancello, who, with 
a number of his brethren, determined to endeavor to convert the natives to 
Christianity, and, as an earnest of their peaceful intentions, took with them 
to Florida a number of natives who had been carried off as slaves by their 
predecessors. Martyrdom was, however, their only reward. The Indians, 
who had been taught in a long series of severe lessons to look upon white 
men as their natural enemies, fell upon the missionaries, who were the first 
to land, and put them to death. With the fate of their leaders before them, 
the minor members of the party lost no time in effecting their escape, and 
the freed slaves alone reaped any profit from the trip. Not more successful 
was an imposing expedition headed by Don Tristan de Luna in 1559. 
Although provided with an army of 1,500 men, and accompanied by a large 
body of missionaries eager to convert the natives ; the weajDons, alike tem- 
poral and spiritual, of the new adventurers were powerless against the 
prejudices of the Indians and the ravages of fever. Those of the explorers 
who escaped the evil effects of the climate fell victims to the vengeance of 
the sons of the soil, and but few survived to tell the tale of the failure of 
the most carefully organized of all Spanish attempts at colonization north 
of the Gulf of Mexico. 



48 



Heroes of ADuricau Discovery. 



We shall meet yet again, liowc^vcr, witli the Spanish in Florida ; but it 
was now the turn of the French to gain a footing in the New World, and 
before we complete the tale of Sj^anish discovery in the North, we must give 
a brief account of th<» atlventurcs of the Gauls in the great exodus of the 
Western nations, in which they bore so important — though so litful — a part. 




CHAPTER IIL 

EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS IN NORTH AMERICA, AND THEIR STRUGGLE WITH 

THE SPANISH IN FLORIDA. 

THE work begun by Vasco Nunez de Balboa in the great journey already 
related, wliich terminated so disastrously for himself, was comjjleted 
in 1522 by the sailing round the globe of one of the ships of the Magellan 
expedition, thus proving the existence of a southern oceanic passage to the 
East, and stimulating the eagerness with which the European nations sought 
to find a shorter north-western route. The Fren(;li, hitherto indifferent to 
what was going on in the New World, seem now to have been suddenly 
aroused to a sense of the fact that the English, Portuguese, and Spanish 
were contending, not, as was at first .sui)iJOsed, fortheijossession of scattered 
and unimportant islands, but for that of a vast continent of as j^et undeter- 
mined extent ; and Francis I, then smarting under the loss of the Imperial 
Crown he had so eagerly coveted, resolved to make up for the priority of 
his rivals in the field by new discoveries in the North. " Why," he is re- 
ported to have said, "should the Kings of Spain and. Portugal divide all 
America between them w ithout suffering iw) to take a share as their brother ? 
I would fain see the article in Adam's will that bequeaths that vast inheri- 
tance to them." 

The first result of this new interest in the affairs of the West was the fit- 
ting out of an expedition, consisting of four ships, under the command of 
Giovanni Verrazano, a native of Florence, already mentioned. Of these 
four vessels, three were disa])led almost before they s(3t sail, leaving to the 
sole survivor, the I)avp7une, the whole burden of the trip. In that vessel 
Verrazano left the Madeiras in January, 1524, with the intention of reaching 
the American coast somewhere above Florida, and thence sailing due north 
till he came to the North- West Passage. 

The first part of this xerogram me was duly carried out, the DaupMne 
having made land about 34° N. lat., whence she cruised down the coast in 
search of a harbor some two hundred leagues, thus passing the most north- 



so 



Heroes of American Discovery, 



erly i)()iiit visited by tlie Spaniards. The natives of the coasts, l)elon«j,ing 
probably to the same race as those who liad so hospitably received Be Ay Hon 
before his real character appeared, ciowded to the beach to stare at \\\,\\\ 
must have seemed to them a strange monster of the deep; and when they 
found the "monster" was, after all, the servant of men such as themselves, 
they beckoned their visitors to land. 

One sailor alone had the courage to respond to the invitation, and he was 
nearly drowned in attempting to swim to the shore. Picked up in an ex- 
hausted condition by the Indians, he was, however, restored by their tender 

treatment. Fires were lighted, 
by which his clothes were dried ; 
and when he was comj)letely 
restored, he was allowed to re- 
turn to his comrades, who had 
all the while been watching the 
proceedings on shore in horror- 
struck silence, expecting the 
lighting of the fires to be the 
preliminary of a human sacri- 
fice. In the hands of a true 
leader of men this little episode 
might have been made the 
foundation of lasting and, 
eventually, beneficial relations 
between the Indians and their 
guests. Yerrazano, however, 
was no excejition to the explor- 
ers of his day ; he rewarded 
those who had saved the life of 
his sailor by carrying oft' a 
young boy as a slave, and then, 
weighing anchor, he set sail 
witli his solitary j^rize for the 
North, arriving, after a long cruise, in what is supposed to have been the 
harbor of New York. Then, as now, though its aspect is so materially 
changed, the mouth of the Hudson presented a beautiful appearance, with 
what are now known as Staten and Long Islands on one side, and the mag- 




IIUD- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



51 



nificent sheet of water flowing into the sea on the other. Instead of the 
stately vessels and trim little giin-boats which now guard the approach to 
the capital of the Metropolis, Indian canoes were shooting heie and there 
on the sunlighted waters, their rowers pausing again and again to look at the 
strange intruder from the South. 

Verrazano remained at anchor off the mouth of the Hudson for about fif- 
teen days, receiving vis- 
its on board from the 
natives — a kindly, 
cheerful race, with reg- 
ular features, clear com- 
plexions, long, straight 
hair, and good figures. 
Then steering up the 
shores of New England 
for some forty or fifty 
leagues, he came to the 
harbor of Nova Scotia, 
where he would gladly 
have rested awhile, but 
finding his i)rovisions 
failing him, and the 
Indians meeting his ad- 
vances with coldness 
and susi)icion, he turned 
the Dauphine' s head 
eastward-ho, arriving at 
Dieppe after an absence 
of only six months. 

More important was 
the work done by 
Verrazano' s su(;cessor, 
Jacques Cartier, of St. 
Malo, who, at the insti- 
gation of Admiral Cha- 
bot, was sent out in 
April, 1534, with two ships of about 130 men, by Francis I., with orders 




JACQUES CAUTIER. 



52 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



to found a colony soniewli<'ie in the Nortli-west. Acting on these some- 
what vague instructions, Caitier iirst made the land at Bona Vista Bay (N. 
lat. 48° 50', W. long. 53° 20'), on the eastern coast of Newfoundland. With 
a knowledge of geography scarcely to have been expected at that early date, 
Cartier lost no time in steering, first north and then northwest, for the straits 
of Belle Isle, dividing Newfoundland from the Mainland ; and, though his 
course was considerably impeded by the ice, he passed without accident into 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, crossing which, in a southwesterly direction, he 
entered a bay on the coast of Canada, which he named Chaleur (N. lat. 49° 
65,' W. long. 65° 25 ), on account of the heat. 

Landing on the shores of what he describes as an inviting country — though 
the natives were half -naked savages, living on raw fish and flesh, and with 
no houses but the canoe tents already noticed in speaking of the discoveries 
of the Northmen — Cartier took possession of the land in the name of the 
King of France, setting up a huge cross upon the beach, with the Fleur de 
Lys carved upon it, in spite of the deprecatory gestures of the natives, who 
well knew what the i^roceeding portended. 

By dint of the exercise of a good deal more tact than was usually shown 
by early explorers, Cartier disarmed the suspicions of the natives, and even 
persuaded their chief to allow him to take liis two sons, Taignoagny and 
Domagaia, to France, for which country he sailed shortly afterward, to re- 
port progress and receive further instructions. 

Pleased with the description given of the new country, Francis I. sent 
Cartier back in the following spring with three well- 
manned vessels under his command, and full powers to 
plant French colonies wherever he chose, also to prose- 
cute the search for a short cut to the East, and to convert 
the natives to the true faith. 

With the two Indian lads — whose full confidence he 
seems to have won — beside him on the deck of the fore- 
most vessel, the future founder of Quebec arrived at the 
cartier's ship, mouth of a large river, the St. Lawrence of the present 
day, on the 10th August, 1584 ; and being informed by the natives that its 
name was Hoclielaga, and that it came from a far country which no man had 
ever seen, he determined to ascend it, thinking that it might perhaps be that 
strait leading to the Indian Ocean which had so long been sought in vain. 
Naming the new river the St. Lawrence, in honor of the saint on whose 




Heroes of American Discovery. 



53 



festival day he first entered it, Cartier made his way slowly over its broad 
waters till he came to tht^ point at which it receives the Saguenay, beyond 
which he anchored off a little island, which he called the Isle aux Coudres, 
on account of the hazel-trees abounding on it. Eight leagues further on, the 
island now known as the Isle d' Orleans was reached, and here the natives, 
reassured by the sight of their two fellow-countrymen, flocked on deck, 
eager to hear of their adventures in the strange land beyond the sea. De- 




ISLANDS AT THE MOUTU OF THE ST. LAWRENCK RIVEH. 



lighted with their accounts of the kindness shown them in France, Donnacona, 
the chief or lord of Saguenay, embraced Cartier, and swore eternal friend- 
ship with him and his people, little dreaming that the advent of the French 
meant the death of his own race as a nation. 

From the Isle d' Orleans the French vessel sailed on, past the mouth of 
tlie St. Croix, now the St. Charles, to the village of Stadacona, on the site 
of the modern Quebec ; thence, undeterred by various stratagems of the na- 
tives, intended to intimidate the explorers, to the more important town of 
Hochelaga, where Montreal now stands ; and then past Huron, a settlement 
of some iifty huts, inclosed within a trii)le barrier of i)alisades. 

Landing at Hochelaga, among crowds of gesticulating natives, Cartier 



54 Heroes of American Discovery, 

and his chief followers were led into the public square, where they were at 
once beset by women and girls, who brought children in their arms to be 
touclied by the white men from beyond the sea. In the center of the square 
lay the king of the land, Agouhanna, a martyr to the terrible disease of 
paralysis. Looking up into the face of his visitor, the monarch, with pa- 
thetic confidence in his omnipotence, begged that he might be freed from 
his sufferings ; and Cartier, touched by the appeal, kneeled down and rubbed 
the poor shrunken limbs of the sufferer, receiving in return for the mo- 
mentary relief thus afforded a present of the royal sufferer's own crown of 
porcupine quills. 

The ready help given to their leader w^as the signal for the bringing into 
the market-place by the natives of all the lame, halt, blind, and aged ; and 
Cartier, finding himself the center of an eager group, could think of nothing 
better to do than to pray for them all, so he read them a chapter from the 
Bible, and then kneeled down and addressed a petition to Heaven on their 
behalf in his own language, the Indians imitating every gesture, under the 
idea that some magic spell was being performed. We can imagine their 
disappointment when no immediate result ensued from the ceremony ; and 
we are glad that the explorer showed so much consideration for their igno- 
rance as to distribute presents of knives, beads, rings, etc., among them, 
which, we are told, they received with joy. 

This town of Hochelaga, which is so prominent in Cartier' s narrative, dis- 
appeared from history soon after his day ; whether it was annihilated under 
the attack of some rival tribe, or destroyed through some tremendous physi- 
cal convulsion, history does not tell us. But its name has been revived, and 
invested with a new interest, in our day ; for the geologist — as truly an ex- 
plorer as the geographer— has been busy upon the site of the ancient town, 
and has discovered many valuable remains of its strange, forgotten life, 
which confirm and complete the account given by Cartier. Principal Daw- 
son, of Montreal, in his book on Fossil Men^ tells us that he has in his pos- 
session from 150 to 200 fragments of earthen vessels found upon the spot 
where Hochelaga stood ; and there is abundant evidence to prove tliat its 
inhabitants were people of no mean mechanical skill. For instance, traces 
have been found of pots, in the necks of which are appliances for suspending 
them, so that the suspending cord might not be burned. Various relics tes- 
tify also to their artistic feeling, most notable among which are tobacco- 
])ipes, upon wliicli much fin<' work must have been spent; their peculiar at- 



Heroes of Arncrican Discoveiy. 



55 



tention to the pipe being perhaps traceable rather to their reverence for the 
worship in which it had an important place, than to the lighter fancy which 
dotes upon meerschaums now-a-days. Their food was that which their sur- 
roundings provided ; and Dr. Dawson says that, among the remains exca- 
vated, bones of nearly all the wild manmials have been found, as well as of 
numerous birds and lishes. Suspicions of cannibalism are roused by the 
discovery of part of a woman's jaw among kitchen refuse; and these are, 
perhai)s, increased by the fact that the Hochelagan skulls which have been 




MONTREAL. 



discovered bespeak a temj^erament undoubtedly fierce and cruel ; but on 
this point there is nothing to lead to certain conclusions. It might be inter- 
esting to follow out this wonderful story of Hochelagan life further,, but to, 
do so here would be aside from the purpose of this cha]:)ter, and we there- 
fore content ourselves with adding, that there are not wanting traces of a 
religious sense, simple and rude it may be, but real and even beautiful, 
3imong the Canadians of Cartier's day ; while the tokens which accompany 



56 Heroes of American Discovery. 

the dead, are such as to show tluit the hope of immortality had shed its soft 
light upon their hearts. 

Naming a hill overlooking Hochelaga Mont Royal — hence the modern 
name of Montreal — in memory of his visit, Cartier soon returned to the 
mouth of the St. Charles, where he established his winter quarters and re- 
mained until the spring, when, having invited Donnacona and nine other 
natives on board his vessel, he set sail for France, carrying them with him. 
All but one little girl died soon after the arrival of the fleet at St. Malo, in 
July, 1536 ; but their captain considered he had more than repaid them for 
their sufferings by their admission into the Roman Catholic Church before 
the end, and was undeterred by any fear of vengeance for his cruelty to 
them from undertaking, in 1540, yet another trij^ to Canada, as the new 
country was now beginning to be called. 

The new expedition consisted of five vessels, and was originally placed 
under the command of Jean Franyois de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval of 
Picardy ; but at the last moment, for reasons variously given, he requested 
Cartier to take his place. Arrived for a third time at his old anchorage off 
Stadacona, Cartier was at first well received by the natives, who expected 
now to welcome back their chief and his warriors ; but when they heard that 
they were dead, grief and horror tilled their hearts. No longer were they 
willing to look upon the white men as their brethren, or to aid their settle- 
ment among them ; and though no open hostilities were resorted to. Car- 
tier found his position throughout the w inter so very far from pleasant, that 
he set sail for France as soon as the weather permitted, meeting De Rober- 
val with reinforcements for the colony — which ought to have been founded 
— in the harbor of St. John's, Newfoundland. 

The Sieur de Roberval, indignant at the failure of his deputy, ordered 
him to return to the St. Lawrence at once, but Cartier continued his course 
to his native land in the night, leaving the original commander of the expe- 
dition to complete his work as best he could. The new-comers sailed up the 
St. Lawrence as far as the St. Charles, but De Roberval was almost imme- 
diately recalled to France to aid his sovereign in his struggle with Charles V. ; 
and though he left thirty of his men behind him, they failed to gain any 
real foothold in the country, and returned home in the ensuing spring, some 
say under the escort of Cartier himself, who w^as sent to their relief. 

Thus, ruined on the very eve of success by a petty act of oppression, ended 
alike the first attempt at colonization by the French in North America and 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



57 



the first exploration of the St. Lawrence, which, though it formed no s*\ort 
cut to the Indies, was yet destined, as the largest body of fresh water in the 
world, to play a mighty part in history as a highway from the coast to the 
interior of North America, 

Very different to that of any of his predecessors was the character of our 
next hero of North American discovery. Driven to bay in France by the 
long series of treacheries and cruelties which culminated in the awful mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew on the 24th of August, 1572, the French Huguenots 
hoped to find in the New World a refuge from religious persecution ; and 
after the failure of an attempt to found a colony in Rio Janeiro in 1565, the 
good Admiral Coligny sent out an expedition 
to that ' ' long coast of the West India called 
La Florida," under the command of John 
Ribault, of Dieppe. 

Trained in the stern school of adversity, 
Ribault started on his voyage prepared to 
face any amount of danger and privation 
in carrying out his mission of founding a 
little Huguenot Church in the wilderness. 
He was accompanied by many heretic noble- 
men imbued with the same spirit, and by a 
little band of well-tried troops. After a 
stormy voyage, the little fleet came in 
sight of the coast of Florida, in about N. 

lat. 29 1-2°, on the 27th April, 1562, and, after a brief halt, sailed north- 
ward till it reached the mouth of "a goodly and great river," the modern 
St. John's, to which the name of the " River of May " was in the first case 
given. 

Entering the River of May in high delight with the beauty of the scenery 
lining its banks, the French refugees landed kt a little distance from the 
sea, and set up a stone column bearing the arms of France, on a little hill 
overlooking the south bank, in token that the land henceforth belonged to 
his Majesty of France. The natives, who are described as "mild and cour- 
teous, well-shaped, of goodly stature, dignified, self-possessed, and of 
pleasant countenance," gazed with wonder, but with no notion of its signifi- 
cance, on the strange pillar set up among them ; and leaving it as the sole 
token of their visit, the Frenchmen pressed on up the coast, passing one 




COLIGNY. 



58 Heroes of American Discovery. 

river after another, till they came, on the 27th May, to the beautiful harbor 
of Port Royal, near the southern boundary of the present Carolina, where 
Ribault determined to plant a colony. 

A fort was erected to begin with, and named Fort Charles, or Carolina, in 
honor of Charles IX. of France ; and leaving thirty of his men, under the 
command of an experienced soldier named Pierria, to form the nucleus of a 
settlement, Ribault returned to France for reinforcements. On his arrival 
"'ji his native land, however, he found his co-religionists in greater distress 
than ever, and not until after the peace of 1562 was the good Coligny able 
to devote any attention to the affairs of the emigrants in the West. 

In 1564 three ships were sent out to their relief, under the command of 
Captain Rene de Laudonniere, who had been with Ribault on his first trip ; 
but on his arrival at the River of May, he was met with the intelligence that 
Fort Charles had been abandoned, and by degrees the whole story of the 
sufferings of his predecessors leaked out. Relying on Ribault' s promise of 
speedy reinforcements, and missing his bracing influence, the unlucky 
Huguenots forgot all about the primary object of their exile, the founding 
of a church in the wilderness, and gave themselves ui3 to indolence and lux- 
ury. As a result, their provisions quickly failed, and, though the Indians 
befriended them to the best of their ability, they began to succumb to fam- 
ine. Discontent and mutiny ensued ; Pierria was assassinated in revenge 
for the severe discipline he endeavored to maintain, and his successor, 
Nicolas Barre, determined to build a small pinnace, in which to return to 
France. 

With infinite difficulty this plan was carried out. A vessel of some kind 
was constructed, and in it, with no iDrovisions but a little corn given by the 
natives, the survivors embarked. For three weeks they tossed about at the 
mercy of the waves, unable to make any considerable progress eastward ; 
and then, all the corn being consumed, they resorted to the awful expedient 
of obtaining food by slaying one of their number. Lots were drawn, and 
the ghastly ceremony resulted in the murder of a certain La Cliere, a soldier 
who had been pre-eminent in insubordination under Captain Pierria, and 
banished by him to an island outside Port Royal, had been rescued by his. 
comrades, only to meet with a yet more awful fate than death by starva- 
tiork. 

Soon after the awful banquet, the blood-stained cannibals — for such had 
the zealous siifferers for the Huguenot faith now become— were piet by an 



Heroes of American Discoveiy. 59 

English vessel and taken on board, some to be landed in France, others to 
be carried prisoners to England. 

Convinced of the truth of the story told by the Indians of the desertion 
of Fort Charles, Laudonniere abandoned his scheme of going there, and re- 
solved instead to found a colony on the May ; and for this purpose he selected 
a spot near the mouth of that river, which is now known as St. John's Bluff. 
Again a fort was built, to which the now ill-fated name of Carolina was once 
more given. Again the colonists contented themselves with j)reparing for 
imaginary enemies, and neglected to provide against the attacks of famine 
and fever. Strength and means were wasted in fruitless expeditions in 
search of that Apalachen, so long the ignis fatuus of explorers in Florida, 
where gold in plenty was ever sought but never found. Moreover, among 
Laudonniere' s men were many reckless adventurers, who, not content with 
rousing the wrath of the peacefully disposed Indians by unprovoked assaults 
upon them, varied their occupations by piracies against the Spaniards of the 
Gulf of Mexico. Retaliations ensued, until at last the colonists, with ene- 
mies rising up on every side, were reduced to the greatest extremities. 

In vain did Laudonniere endeavor to stem the current of adverse circum- 
stances ; in vain did he strive, by example and by precept, to inaugurate a 
new policy, by tilling the ground for future support, and conciliating the 
Indians, with a view to obtaining present supplies. His men, desperate 
with hunger, clamored for him to seize a neighboring chief, and hold him as 
a hostage, till his people ransomed him with corn ; and finally, though 
much against his own judgment, Laudonniere yielded. 

Outina, a chieftain of high repute, was carried off, and imprisoned in 
Fort Carolina. His subjects, at first furious, ap2:)eared to acquiesce in the 
situation, and offered the coveted ransom in corn, to be fetched from a dis- 
tant village by the Frenchmen. The famished Huguenots fell into the 
snare. Instead of granaries of the staff of life they found an ambuscade of 
armed natives, and, after a long and bloody fight, they returned to their 
camp with diminished numbers, and no trophies of a hard-earned victory 
but tAvo small bags of corn. 

Death now stared the colony in the face, and probably every member of 
it must have perished miserably, had not Sir John Hawkins, first of the long 
list of Englishmen who have disgraced their nationality as dealers in slaves, 
touched at the fort on his way home from a successful cruise. The wealth 
he had won in his traffic in human flesh enabled Hawkins not only to relieve 



6o Heroes of American Discovcjy. 

the present necessities of the French, but to give them a vessel in which to 
return home ; and they were on the eve of a joyful embarkation, when our 
old friend Ribault appeared on the scene with fresh emigrants and plentiful 
stores of every variety. 

A new era seemed now likely to be ushered in, but its inauguration was 
saddened by the humiliation of Laiidonniere, whose vigorous efforts to carry 
out the original intentions of his emj)loyer. Admiral Coligny, had been mis- 
represented in France by certain of his insubordinate followers, whom he 
had sent home in disgrace, and forgotten. When the first enthusiasm at the 
arrival of his fellow-countryman had subsided, the one man who had striven 
to avert the evils which had befallen the colony learned that Ribault had 
come out to supersede him in his command. The fact that the new governor 
was quickly convinced of the injustice of the charges brought against Lau- 
donniere, and begged him to remain with him as a friend, and to retain the 
command of Fort Carolina, appears to have done little to soothe the wounded 
spirit of our hero. He had resolved to return to France at once and stand 
his trial, when one of those sudden changes in the aspect of affairs, to which 
early settlements in America have ever been subject, held him to his post. 

As we have seen in our previous chapter, the Spanish looked upon Florida, 
which they took to include the whole of America north of the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, as their own peculiar property. The news of the establishment of a 
settlement of French Protestants in their territory was, therefore, received 
with a burst of indignation, to which it was difficult to say whether cupid- 
ity, religious zeal, or national jealousy most contributed. 

After the failure of the expedition of De Luna to Florida in 1661, a certain 
Pedro Menendez had been appointed by the Spanish monarch to the govern- 
ment of Florida, on the condition of his subduing it in three years. He now 
received orders to hasten the start of his expedition, and to add to his 
scheme the destruction of the colony of French heretics. 

The rejoicings at the arrival of Ribault were still going on among the un- 
conscious settlers on the May, when the fleet of Menendez was seen creeping 
into the harbor. A messenger sent to inquire whence it came, and what it 
wanted, received the laconic answer that Pedro Menendez was in conmiand, 
and had come, in obedience to the orders of his sovereign, to "burn and de- 
stroy such Lutheran Fi'ench as should be in his dominions." 

Of Ribault/s fleet of seven vessels, three were just then absent on a trip 
up the river, and not daring to meet the Spaniards with only four, the 



Heroes of American Discovery. 6i 

French commander was compelled to put out to sea with them, leaving his 
colony totally unprotected. From a safe distance he watched his enemies 
disembark a little to the north of his own settlement, intending, so soon as 
they were involved in all the confusion of a march through an unknown 
country, to fall upon their rear and destroy them. But, alas ! at the criti- 
cal moment a terrible storm came on, dispersing the French vessels, and 
leaving the women, the children, and the disabled in Fort Carolina at the 
mercy of the ruthless Spaniards. 

A terrible massacre ensued, from which but a few, including Laudonniere, 
escaped, and got on board the only two vessels which had not been wrecked, 
in which they at once put to sea, arriving in due time in France, to tell the 
awful tidings of the fate of their comrades. The French Government took 
but little notice of the matter — for were not the sufferers heretics ? — and the 
Huguenots, though beside themselves with rage, were unable to send any 
adequate force to avenge their co-religionists, until two years later, when 
the services were secured of Dominique de Gourgues and 150 men. 

Before any reinforcements arrived in Florida, therefore, fresh horrors were 
enacted. Menendez, having obtained intelligence from the Indians that a 
number of Frenchmen were still alive on Anastasia Island, a little to the 
south, where they had taken refuge on the destruction of their vessel, hast- 
ened to the spot, and, after a short parley, induced the Frenchmen to sur- 
render themselves unconditionally into his hands. Then, having weeded 
out from among them the few who j^rofessed themselves to be Catholics, and 
two or three craftsmen whose services he required, he had them all hewn 
down before his eyes. This new atrocity over, he returned to Florida, but, 
being met by the intelligence that Ribault himself, with a little remnant of 
his immediate followers, had survived, and was now probably on the scene 
of the massacre of his fellow-countrymen, he hurried back to Anastasia to 
complete his bloody work. 

Knowing what he had to expect, Ribault gathered his men about him, 
and received his executioners with quiet dignity. Asked were he and his 
companions Catholics or Lutherans, he replied simply that they were all of 
the Reformed religion, that from the dust they had come and to the dust 
they must return ; twenty years more or less could matter but little ; the 
Adelantado could do with them as he chose. Again the men who might be 
of use to him in his work of colonization were led apart by Menendez, again 
the signal for the massacre was given, again the triumphant cries of the 



62 Heroes of American Discovery. 

victors werc^ mingled with the groans of the dying ; and when all was over, 
Menendez, with the consciousness of liaving done his duty, returned thanks 
to God, and retired to his head-quarters to send home to his king an account 
of the triumph of the true faith. 

Scenes of bloodshed were now exchanged for the peaceful work of found- 
ing a Spanish colony. The site chosen was in N. lat. 29° 51', W. long. 81° 
30', some miles north of the ill-fated Fort Carolina, and was named St. Au- 
gustine, because the Spanish Heet had first come in sight of Florida on the 
festival day of that saint. The boundaries of the settlement were carefully 
marked out under the supervision of Menendez himself, and though its 
foundations were laid in blood, it grew with a rapidity hitherto unequaled, 
and bid fair to be the first pernuinent settlement of Euroi)eans in North 
America. The past was forgotten, and not more unconscious of their com- 
ing doom than the poor colonists of Carolina were the Spaniards of St. 
Augustine, when once more a little fleet apjieared upon the coast of Florida, 
coming, not this time from the South, but from the North ; for De Gourgues, 
with the foresight of a true soldier, had paused to secure the friendship of 
the Indians of the May before venturing to ax>proach the Spanish camp. 

The outposts of the Spaniards were surprised, the sentinels were slain at 
their posts, and a force of four hundred men sent out by Menendez against 
the enemy was completely destroyed, those taken pi-isoners being hanged 
on the very trees on which some of the Frenchmen of Carolina had suffered 
the same fate at the hands of the Spaniards. With this retribution, how- 
ever, De Gourgues — who, it must be remembered, was acting without the 
authority of his government — appears to have been content. He made no 
descent upon St. Augustine itself ; but having destroyed the forts whose 
garrisons he had massacred, he bade his Indian allies farewell, and left the 
country. But his Avork had been more thorough than he knew himself, for 
the natives, who had hitherto looked upon the Spaniards as invincible, had 
seen them fall an easy prey to the French, and the remainder of the career 
of Menendez was one long struggle against the treacherous schemes of the 
red men. His efforts at exploration on the North were unsuccessful ; the 
missionaries whom he induced to land on the north-western shores of Flor- 
ida were led into ambush, and massacred by the natives ; and though sum- 
mary vengeance was exacted for their fate, the enmity of the Indians con- 
tinued to hamper all the movements of the Spaniards. 

To complete the story of early settlements in Florida, we may add that 



Heroes of Ariiericaii Discovery, 



63 



for thirty years St. Aiigiistiiie was the only European colony north of the 
Gulf of Mexico, and that in 15SG a visit was paid to it by Sir Francis Drake, 
who found it under the commaud of Pedro Menendez, nephew of its foun- 
der, who is thought to have been the first European to enter Chesapeake Bay. 




viKw OX THE Coast of Florida. 

The English being at this date very bitter against the Spanish, Drake thought 
it a pious duty to carry off the treasure and burn the houses of St. Augus- 
tine, the inhabitants of which fled at his apj^roach, with the exception of a 
certain Frenchman, a fifer, who had been one of the few spared in the massa- 
cres of Anastasia, and who now came to meet the English " in a little boate, 
playing on his Phiph the tune of the Prince of Orange his song." 



CHAPTER IV. 



FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 

IT was now the turn of the English, who had thus far been slow to realize 
the great value of the newly-discovered districts, to send out expeditions 
with a view to the planting of settlements in North-east America. In the 
early part of the 16th century, several voyages to the North-west were made 
under British leadership, and some slight knowledge of the limits, though 
scarcely of the geography, of the western coasts of North America was 
gained by the brilliant pirate Drake, who sailed as far north as the present 
state of Oregon ; but it was reserved to the half-brothers, Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, to give the first real impulse to the intelli- 
gent exploration of the western seaboard of North America. 

The brothers appear to have been first roused to take an interest in the 
New World from the reports given at the court of Elizabeth by some of the 
unhappy Frenchmen, Avho, as we have seen, were rescued from a fearful 
fate by an English vessel after their escape from the colony on the River of 
May, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, after a long negotiation, obtained a charter 
from Elizabeth in 1578, granting him full jwwer for six years to discover 
"remote, heathen and barbarous lands not actually possessed by any Christ- 
ian prince or people," and to take possession of them for his own benefit; 
and Sir Walter was among the earliest to come to his aid with money and 
advice, though he was forbidden by the maiden monarch to take any per- 
sonal share in the enterprise. 

Gilbert's first attempt to start for the W^est failed at the very outset, 
through the loss of one of his vessels and the desertion of many of his fol- 
lowers. The second expedition, which started in 1588, reached St. John's, 
Newfoundland, in safety, and, landing, Sir Humi)hrey read aloud his com- 
mission to the motley crowd of fishermen of all nations there assembled. A 
pillar bearing the arms of Eugland was then set up, in token that the land 
henceforth belonged to the English monarch, and the voyage was resumed; 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



65 



but before the fleet had proceeded far down the coast of the United States, 
the largest vessel was wrecked, and the remainder beat a hasty retreat for 
England. Gilbert, who had embarked on the smallest of the ships in order 
to superintend the coast surveys, refused to leave it for the homeward voy- 
age, replying, when urged to do so, "I will not forsake my little com- 
pany . . . with whom I have passed so many storms and perils," For 
this noble resolution the unfortu- 
nate commander paid with his life, \ 
for his little bark, the Squirrel, 
went down, with all on board, in 
mid-Atlantic. 

On receiving the news of the sad 
fate of his half-brother, and of the 
total failure of his expedition, so 
far as any practical results were 
concerned. Sir Walter Raleigh lost 
not a moment in obtaining a new 
patent from the Queen; and though 
forbidden at the last moment by 
Her Majesty to sail himself, he suc- 
ceeded in dispatching two vessels, 
under the command of Captain 
Philip Amadas and Captain Bar- 
low, as early as the 27th of April, 
1583. 

The coast of Florida was sighted 
on the 2d of July of the same year, 
and, sailing for some hundred and 
twenty miles without finding any 
harbor, the adventurers came in 
due course to what they took to be 
an island, but which, so far as can 

be made out from the confused and contradictory accounts given of the voy- 
age by old chroniclers, is generally supposed to have been Cape Hatteras 
(N. lat. 35° 14', W. long. 75° 32 ). Here they disembarked, and were kindly 
received by the king of the country, a native of " mean stature, of color 
yellow, and with black hair, worn long on one side only," the latter pecu- 




THE LAST MOMENTS OF SIR HirArPHREY GILBEUT. 



66 



Heroes of American Discoi>ery. 



liarity being, as it turned out, a distinctive mark of the male sex of this dis- 
trict, the ^vomen alone enjoying the privilege of wearing the hair k>ng on 
both sides. 

The name of the newly-discovered territory was Wing-andacoa, and that of 
its king Wingina ; but, with the usual cool disregard of the feelings of the 
natives shown by all or nearly all early explorers, the visitoi's took jiosses- 




SIR WALTER RAUEIGH. 

sion of it, and "of all adjacent countries," in the name of their queen, who, 
on hearing of its discovery, called it Virginia, after her own most excellent 
virgin Majesty. 

After exchanging presents with AVingina and his brother, Granganamco, 
of the neighborhig "island" of Roanoake, the name of which is still re- 



Heroes of AviericiDi Discoverv 



67 



taiiiecl by 11 river of Virginia, the adventurers returned to England, and in 
the ensuing year, 1585, a second and more iiu])ortant expedition was sent 
out by Sir Walter llaleigli, under Sir Ixicliard Grenville, with instructions 




SIB FRANCIS DRAKE. 



to found a colony in Virginia, from which further explorations inland and 
along the coasts were to be made as opportunity offered. 

The colony was duly founded, with Koanoake as its headquarters, and 
leaving 108 men and women to inhabit tlu^ country, under the governorship 



68 Heroes of American Discovery. 

of lialph Lane, Sir Richard returned to England, confident that he had 
sown the seed of an important olLshoot of the mother country. In a short 
excursion he had made up the coast, however, the governor had planted a 
thorn in the side of the infant community by the summary vengeance he 
had taken on a whole village, one member of which had stolen a silver cup. 
The natives, w^ho had at first been prepared to allow the new-comers to plant 
and build without molestation, were now eager to get rid of them by fair 
means or foul, and no course seemed open to Lane but the fatal one of in- 
timidation, which had already led to so many terrible scenes on the fair 
western coasts of America. 

After a trip up the coast resulting in the discovery of Chesapeake Bay, 
which had, however, long been known to the Spanish, Lane, misled by 
legends, in which he thought he read signs of the existence, not very far 
westward, of abundance of pearls, of copper-mines, and, best of all, of the 
white breakers of the Pacific Ocean, went for some little distance up the 
Roanoake river, returning disheartened and disgusted, to find his people at 
daggers drawn with the Indians, who w^ere in their turn embroiled with a 
neighboring chief. With the prospect of massacre if their enemies triumphed, 
and death by famine through the failure of native supplies if they were 
defeated, the unlucky colonists were in despair, when Sir Francis Drake, 
red-handed from his destruction of St. Augustine, arrived off the coast wdth 
a fleet of twenty-six vessels. 

Although Drake would have left with Lane men 
and provisions enough to save them from either of the 
evils they so much dreaded, the colonists, who had com- 
pletely lost heart, clamored to be taken home, and one 
and all embarked for England, taking with them as sole 
trophy of their brief occupation of Virginia a supply of 
tobacco, the use of which they had learned from the 
Indians, who had from time immemorial connected the 
dra.ke's ship. smoking of it with all their religious or civil ceremonies 
of any importance, and who w^ould probably have looked upon its every- 
day consumption as little short of sacrilege and mockery of the "Great 
Spirit." 

The fleet of Sir Francis Drake had scarcely left the coast, before a vessel, 
under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, arrived sent out by Raleigh, 
with supplies for the colonists. Finding the settlement deserted, the leader 




Heroes of American Discovery. 



69 



of the relief party left fifteen men at Roanoake to retain possession of it for 
England, and returned home. Determined not to allow his brother's work 
to remain unfinished, Sir Walter, in 



spite of these repeated failures, lost no 
time in fitting out yet another expedi- 
tion consisting of 150 men, and com- 
manded by John White as governor, 
and Simon Ferdinando as admiral. 
The two leaders quarreled before Vir- 
ginia was reached, and, as a result 
their trip was as unsatisfactory as 
any which had preceded it. No trace 
could be found of Grenville's fifteen 
men, and the only incidents of this 
visit to Virginia worthy of record 
were the murder by Indians of a Mr. 
Howe, with the terrible vengeance 
exacted on some natives lolio had 
had nothing lohatever to do with the 
outrage^ and the birth, on the 18th 
August, 1587, of Virginia Dare, 
grand -daughter of White, and the 
first child of English j)arents born on 
North American soil. 

Finding himself unable to cope with the difficulties of his position. White 
soon made excuse for returning to England, and leaving a small detachment 
of his forces, his daughter, and her infant alluded to above, in the "City of 
Raleigh," as the new settlement was called, he set sail at the end of August, 
1587, promising to return speedily with reinforcements. 

Three years elapsed before this promise was fulfilled, and of the history 
of the deserted colony during that period no details have ever been gathered. 
Arrived at Roanoake in the spring of 1590, the indefatigable Sir Walter 
Raleigh again bearing the expense of the expedition. White found no trace 
of the city of his benefactor. The light of a distant fire was the sole sign of 
life which met his eyes when he reached the sjiot where he had exjjected to 
find his former comrades, his daughter, and his now three-year old grand- 
child. Eagerly pressing on in the direction of the fire, some of White's 




ELIZABETH KNIGHTING DRAKE. 



70 Heroes of American Discovery. 

men discovered the letters " C R O " carved on the trunk of a tree on a little 
hill. The sight of these letters reminded the leader that the colonists had 
agreed, should they have to leave the City of Raleigh, to carve the name of the 
place to which they went on some tree or trunk, and, further, to add be- 
neath the name a cross, in the event of any misfortune having befallen 
them. 

What, then, could the three letters mean % Nothing worse, surely, than 
that the emigrants had removed to some place the name of which began 
with them. "Cro — Cro — " repeated one after another, until at length the 
remainder of the word flashed across the minds of all. The friendly village 
of Croatoan, already known to White, must be now the home of the lost emi- 
grants. There was no cross beneath the initial letters to damp the delight 
at this discovery, and the march was resumed. A little further on the full 
word "Croatoan" was found carved upon a tree, still without the cross; 
but, in spite of this reassuring token, all further efforts to find the colony 
were unavailing. The fire had been lighted by Indians, who could give no in- 
formation ; and when after many days of disheartening search, a number of 
empty chests, f rameless pictures, and other relics were found in a trench. 
White — who seems, to say the least of it, to have been strangely ready to 
accept the loss of his daughter and grandchild — threw up the search and 
returned home, without, so far as we can make out, actually visiting the 
village of Croatoan after all. 

This silent disappearance of a colony of white men, including at least one 
woman and an infant girl, has given rise to many a legend of the presence, 
among the dusky warriors of the West, of princesses of alien race ruling the 
simple savages by virtue of their suj)erior intelligence ; but though Raleigh 
sent out expedition after expedition to scour Virginia and the surrounding 
districts for traces of his lost people, not one trustworthy word was ever ob- 
tained as to their fate, though the name of many another Englishman was 
added to the already long roll of martyrs to the cause of colonization in the 
West. 

With the death by drowning, off Chesapeake Bay, of his nephew, Barthol- 
omew Gilbert, early in 1602, ended Raleigh's direct connection with North 
America. In 1603, when the loss of his beloved mistress had converted him 
from a court favorite into a " spider of hell" and a " viperous traitor " — to 
quote the forcible language of his prosecutor. Coke — the patent, which he 
had reserved in his own name on the death of his brother, Sir Humphrey, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 71 

expired by his attainder for high treason ; but to his influence was due, first, 
the sending out, in 1602, of the little ship Concord., under Bartholomew Gos- 
nold ; and, secondly, the great expedition of 1606, inseparably connected 
with the names of Captain John Smith and the fair Pocahontas. 

To Bartholomew Gosnold we owe the first practical corroboration of the 
ancient sagas, on which is founded our account of the visits to the western 
coast of America by the Northmen. 

Arriving in his little bark off the modern Cape Ann, in N. lat. 42° 37', 
our hero sailed southward across Massachusetts Bay, landed on Cape Cod, 
N. lat. 42° 5', and thence visited some of the adjoining islands, one of which 
he found so full of vines that he named it Martha's Vineyard, thereby un- 
consciously following the example of the old sea-kings, who had called it, 
or some not very distant locality, Yinland. 

Unable, with the very limited means at his disposal, himself to found a 
colony, though he made an unsuccessful attempt to do so in the westernmost 
of the islands visaed, and which he named Elizabeth, Gosnold took home 
such proofs of the wealth of the newly-discovered districts that the interest 
of many influential noblemen and merchants was aroused. An association 
— including the great Richard Hakluyt — whose name still lives in the valu- 
able society to which we OAve so much of our knowledge of the progress of 
geographical research — was quickly formed, and as early as 1606, when 
Raleigh was expiating his imaginary crimes in the Tower, letters patent were 
issued in the name of James I. to Sir George Summers, Edward Maria 
Wingfield, and others, granting them all lands on the American coast, with 
the adjacent islands, between 34° and 45° N. lat. 

Among the conditions annexed to these letters patent was the important 
one that two comj)anies should be formed — one to be called the Southern, 
the other the Northern Colony. 

While the preliminary steps in the organization of these two companies 
were being taken, two short though important visits were paid to North 
America — one by Martin Pring in the Speedwell., resulting in the discovery 
of several of the harbors of Maine, and of the Saco, Kennebec, and York 
Rivers ; the other by George Weymouth, who supplemented his predeces- 
sors' work by a thorough survey of the coast of Maine, and the discovery of 
the Penobscot River. 

On the 19th December, 1606, after an unsuccessful attemi^t by the 
Phnnouth Company to settle a colony in the lands assigned to it, the Loji- 



72 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



don Company sent forth the expedition destined to obtain the first perma- 
nent foothold in the present United States. Three vessels, the SaraTi Con- 
slant,, the God-speccl., and the Discovery,, bore to the site of their new home 
one hundred and five men, of whom the most noteworthy were the com- 
mander, Newport, Bartholomew Gosnold, Gabriel Archer, Edward ^Maria 
Wingfield, the Rev. Eobert Hunt, George Percy, brother to the Earl of 
Northumberland, and the great John Smith. 




VIEW ON THE COAST OF MAINE. 



The voyage out was rendered harassing by perpetual disputes ; and when, 
on the 26th April, 1607, the colonists sailed up Chesapeake Bay, the seeds 
were already sown of future troubles. Naming the southern extremity of 
the bay Cape Henry, and the northern Caj)e Charles, after the sons of 
James I., the explorers landed on the peninsula, about fifty miles from the 
mouth of the bay. The sealed instructions which had been brought out by 
the commander were now opened, when it was ascertained that the govern- 



Heroes of American Discovery. *j^ 

nient was to be vested in a council, to consist of Gosnold, Smith, Newport, 
Ratcliffe, Martin, and KendalJ, under the presidency of Wingtield, and 
that, among other minor tasks, the emigrants were to discover the water 
communication still supposed to exist between Virginia and the Pacific. 

Having fixed, on the 13th May, 1607, on the site of the first settlement, 
which they named Jamestown, in honor of their monarch, the emigrants di- 
vided their forces, some setting to work to fell trees and so forth, others 
joining Captain Newport in fitting out a shalloiD in which to make the first 
discovery so eagerly hoped for by all. 

Entering the river Powhatan, which they christened James, the exploring 
party sailed up as far as the now well-known Falls, by which further prog- 
ress was barred, and after paying a visit to the native chieftain, Pawatah — who 
received his strange guests with ill-disguised fear — returned disappointed and 
disgusted to Jamestown within a week of setting out. A little later, New- 
port set sail for England, and his departure seems to have been the signal 
for the breaking out of the fire of discontent and jealousy which had long 
been smoldering. 

From the first, Smith had been, according to one account, the ring-leader 
of the malcontents, and according to his own, the most oppressed among 
the ill-used colonists. In any case, his name crops up as a bone of conten- 
tion in all the documents still extant relating to the much -vexed early days 
of Jamestown. Famine, disease, and quarrels among themselves greatly 
reduced the original number of the emigrants before the first summer was 
over, and, but for the kindness of the Indians, all would probably have 
perished. 

Refraining from entering into details of the disputes between Wingfield 
and Smith, and, when the former had been deposed, between his successors, 
Ratcliffe and Martin, and the same noted member of the council, we must 
content ourselves with adding that the supreme power finally passed into 
the hands of John Smith, and that, whatever may have been his faults as a 
private individual, he proved himself more than equal to the emergency as 
the leader of what had now become little more than a forlorn hope. 

By his energetic measures, even before he was formally elected president 
of the council, Smith succeeded in restoring first peace and then prosperity 
to the almost despairing band of survivors, and the winter of 1607 found him 
in a position to pursue the geographical explorations so suddenly interrupted, 
and with which alone we have, strictly speaking, now to do. On the 10th 



74 



Heroes of American Discovery, 



December lie started in as:iallboat with two Englishmen and tAvo Indian 
guides, np the little river Chickahominy, which flowed into the James river 
a few miles above the infant settlement. 




CAPTATX JOHN SMITH. 

Unable to proceed far by water, Smith soon left his boat under charge of 
his fellow-countiymen, and set off alone througli the woods with the natives, 
ais Ji^nghsh comrades were almost immediately surprised and killed by 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



75 



savages, and lie himself was taken prisoner by a chief named Opechancan- 
ough and his warriors, who would have slain him had he not suddenly 
produced his pocket compass, the strange proceedings of which so astonished 
liis captors that they resolved to retain its owner among them, as one likely 
to bring honor to their tribe. From place to place the unfortunate white 
man was marched, to be shown 
To crowds of admiring Indians, 
paying thus the first visit ever 
made by a European to the 
Potomac River, and finally ar- 
riving at the encampment of 
Powhatan — x^robably the father 
of the Pawatah mentioned 
above — then staying on the 
bank of what is now called 
York River. 

Here occurred, or rather is 
said to have occurred — for some 
authorities make no allusion to 
it — that romantic incident 
which has formed the theme of 
so many legends and romances. 
According to Smith's own ac- 
count, preserved in his General 
History, he was first received 
with great respect and ostenta- 
tion by the Emperor Powhatan, 

and afterwards a consultation cai-tai^ smith takkn pkisoner by the Indians. 
Avas held between his host (F^m smith's " Virginia.") 

and his chief men, resulting in the decision that the white man should be 
slain. Two large stones were then dragged into the presence ; Smith was 
led to them, and made to lay his head upon them. Three executioners now 
hastened forward, and were about to beat the victim's brains out with clubs, 
when Pocahontas, the king's dearest daughter, a lovely girl of about twelve 
years old, rushed forward, seized Smith's head in her arms, and laid her own 
down upon it. 

The liands of the ejcecutioners were stayed, and Pocahontas, turning to 




76 



Heroes of Ameriea7i Discovery. 



her father, pleaded so eloquently for the life of Smitli, that her prayer was 

granted. lie was I'estored to 
liberty, and sent back to James- 
town under an escort of twelve 
savages, arriving there after 
an absence of about four weeks, 
to find the colony again in a state 
of destitution and anarcliy. The 
immediate wants of the unlucky 
emigrants were, however, sup- 
plied by Pocahontas, who seems 
to have determined not to lose 
sight of the hero she had saved, 
and to have come constantly to 
Jamestown with supplies of corn 
for him and his people. A little 
later, her kindly aid was supj^le- 
mented by the return to James- 
town of Newport, with one 
hundred and twenty men, pro- 
visions, implements, and seeds. 

The brief revival of prosperity 
was, however, to a great extent 
neutralized by an unfortunate 
discovery near Jamestown of a 
quantity of yellow mica, which 
was mistaken for gold. New- 
port and his men threw up for its sake the tilling of the ground and trading 
for furs with the Indians — which woidd really have produced a golden har- 
vest — and finally set sail for Europe, with a cargo, to quote Smith's own ex- 
pression, of the useless dirt. 

AVith Newport departed Smith's rivals, Wingfield, Archer, and Martin, 
leaving him the chief person in the colony ; and so soon as his movements 
were uidianq:)ered, he set to work exploring the neighborhood, quickly gain- 
ing a very thorough knowledge of Chesai^eake Bay and its tributaries, a\ hicli 
he embodied in a map still extant. On one trip he penetrated far into the 
present state of Oliio, and heard from the natives something of the doings 




POCAHONTAS AND CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 77 

of the French, who were by this time rapidly gaining ground in Canada. 
On his return to Jamestown in September, 1608, Smith was formally 
elected, what he had long been in reality, president of the colonial council ; 
and a little later, Newport again appeared on the scene with fresh emigrants, 
including two women, Mistress Forrest and Ann Burras, her maid, and sup- 
plies of provisions. Newport was also the bearer of instructions from the 
London Council "to bring home a lump of gold," instead of the worthless 
stuff sent last time, " to discover the passage to the South Sea, to find the 
survivors of the Roanoake colony, and to crown the Emjjeror Powhatan." 

Instead of the lump of gold, Smith sent back a cargo of timber, and speci- 
mens of tar, pitch, and potash ; instead of the discovery of the passage to 
the South Sea, he reported the existence of a richly-Avatered land, which 
would repay tillage a hundredfold ; and of the message relating to the sur- 
vivors of Roanoake he took no notice whatever. The only part of the strange 
orders received literally carried out was that relating to the crowning of 
Powhatan, who, convinced of his own importance by the fuss made about him, 
declared he was not coming to Jamestown, but must be waited on at home. 

In this the dusky warrior, whose friendship Newport considered of great 
importance to the colony, was humored, and the banks of the Potomac wit- 
nessed a quaint ceremony, the significance of which the chief actor must 
have been totally unable to understand. 

On Newport's arrival in London, early in 1609, with Smith's unsatisfac- 
tory replies to the communications pf his employers, it was resolved entirely 
to alter the character of the administration of the colony. A new charter 
was asked for and obtained from the king ; a governor. Lord De La Warre, 
whose power was to be absolute, was appointed, with a number of officials 
with high-sounding titles under him. Five hundred emigrants joined his 
standard, and early in May the whole party, with the exception of the gov- 
ernor himself, who was to follow shortly afterward, set sail from England 
in an imposing fleet of nine vessels. But a violent storm off the Bermudas 
wrought terrible havoc among the ships — two were totally wrecked, and 
seven only reached Virginia. These seven contained but the more reckless 
of the emigrants, "gentlemen " who had dissipated their fortunes at home ; 
and while they added greatly to the difficuliies of Smith, all those of the 
original expedition, who were worthy of the great task before them, were 
struggling for dear life on the shores of the uninhabited but fruitful island 
on which they had been cast. 



yS Heroes of American Discovery. 

For a year, Smitli struggled on ; for a year, those who would have brought 
fresh life to Virginia sustained each other's courage b}^ working hard with 
heads and hands, until they succeeded in building, out of the wreck of their 
own, two new vessels, in which they ugain embarked for their western home. 
Could Smith but have held out until this wonderful feat was accom^^lished, 
he might yet have seen the end attained for which he had so long and pa- 
tiently labored ; but he was disabled in an explosion of gunpowder, and 
obliged to return to England to obtain proper surgical treatment, shortly 
before Sir Thomas Gates, who was to act as Lord De la Warre's deputy till 
his arrival, set sail from the Bermudas. 

With Smith's departure from Virginia, all the evils he had suppressed 
with a strong hand cropped up anew. The Indians were roused to fury by 
raids and oppression ; the ground was left untilled, and soon a "starving- 
time" began, which reduced the emigrants fi'om one hundred and ninety to 
sixty. Tliese sixty — a gaunt and crime-stained crew, huddled together in 
ruined huts, a prey to disease and misery — came forth to meet Sir Thomas 
Gates and his hardy followers, entreating with tears and cries to be taken 
away from the land where they had endured such horrors. 

Fearing that his own people might share the fate of the wretches before 
him. Gates at once resolved to take all the Europeans to Newfoundland, and 
there await, among the fishermen with whom it was now j)opulated, the ar- 
rival of reinforcements from England. On the 7th June, 1609, the two ves- 
sels constructed on the Bermudas, and four crazy pinnaces which had be- 
longed to the colonists, weighed anchor, and were dropping slowly from the 
country of which they had hoped such great things, when a boat was seen 
advancing to meet them from the sea. 

Eagerly did all now crowd to the sides of the vessels to ascertain the 
meaning of this unexpected phenomenon ; and the rejoicing may be imag- 
ined when the little hark turned out to be the boat of Lord De la Warre 
himself, sent to announce his approach with three vessels laden with new 
emigrants and j^rovisions ! No need now to liee to Newfoundland ; and, 
with fresh hope in their hearts, the colonists, old and new, returned to 
Jamestown, there to await the coming of their governor. 

Two days later, the three eagerly expected vessels anchored at the mouth 
of the James River, and Lord De la Warre came on shore. Falling on his 
knees as he stepped from his l)oat, the new leader returned thanks to God 
for all his mercies — Sir Thomas Gates and the colonists, who were drawn up 



Heroes of American Discovery, 79 

to receive him, Joining earnestly, with bent heads, in this act of worship. 
The prayer over, eager greetings were exchanged between the new-comers 
and those whom they had rescued ; Lord De la Warre read his commission, 
and 3ii" Thomas Gates resigned his power into the hands of his superior of- 
ficer. 

A new era now began for Virginia : peace was made with the Indians, and 
/cemented by the marriage of the far-famed Pocahontas with an Englishman 
named John Rolfe, who in 1616 visited England with his bride. The story 
goes that Pocahontas, whose heart had long ago been given to John Smith, 
was only induced to marry Rolfe after being carried off from her home by 
force by a Captain Argall ; and that, on her presentation at the court of 
King James, she caught sight of her old hero among the crowd, covered, her 
face with her hands, and burst into tears. However that may be, it seems 
certain that Pocahontas was converted to Christianity, and baptized under 
the name of Rebecca, before she left Virginia. She remained in England 
for a year, and died — after giving birth to a son, from whom some of the 
best families in Virginia claim descent — just as she was about to embark on 
her return to her native country. 

After the arrival of Lord De la Warre in Virginia, in 1610, the colony en- 
joyed a long period of prosperity. The mouth of the river, named after its 
first governor, was discovered by the Captain Argall already mentioned, in 
one of many exploring expeditions up the coast ; while inland, the huts of 
the colonists gradually replaced the wigwams of the natives on the Potomac, 
the Ohio, the Shenandoah, the Rappahannock, etc. In 1619 took place 
two events, pregnant in results, not only to Virginia, but to the whole of the 
future Republic of America — the first cargo of slaves was landed at James- 
town, and the first Legislative Assembly met in the same town. In 1622, 
the growth of the colony was suddenly checked by a terrible disaster, in the 
shape of a general massacre of the whites at the instigation of the chief 
Opechancanough, who had then succeeded his brother Powhatan as the leader 
of the dusky tribes whose homes had been appropriated by the English in- 
truders. 

No suspicion of the awful fate awaiting them appears to have dawned 
upon the unlucky colonists, who, scattered up and down in their farms, 
were engaged in their usual peaceful avocations, when, on the morning of 
the 22d March, 1622, the house of every white man was visited by a few 
armed savages, who, having put to death with horrible tortures all its in- 



8o Heroes of American Discovery. 

mates, sparing neither age nor sex, i)assed on to aid tlieir brethren in the 
same terrible work elsewhere. One alone of the many Indians who had been 
apparently converted to Christianity was true to his adopted creed, and, in- 
stead of murdering, warned his master in time for him to make his own es- 
cape, and carry the tidings of the apiDroach of the red men to Jamestown. 

In a little open boat the two sped down the river, arriving at the capital of 
the colony in time to avert much bloodshed. Messages were sent to the outly- 
ing settlements ; and the Indians, finding themselves outwitted, would have 
retired to tlieir woods, had not the whites cut off their retreat, and in their 
turn slain without mercy all who fell into their hands. Throughout the 
length and breadth of the land desolation now replaced the former plenty, 
and it soon became evident to the natives that in tlieir wild rising they had 
sounded their own death-knell. Taught by experience not to trust in the 
promises of the Indians, the Virginians now gathered more closely together, 
building large towns, in which the first owners of the soil were only admit- 
ted as servants, until at last the fact that they had ever been an}' thing else 
passed from the memory of their oppressors. 

In 1629, Jamestown was visited, from his little colony of Ferryland, in 
Newfoundland, by Lord Baltimore, a distinguished Catholic nobleman, who 
Avas so charmed with the scenery round Chesapeake Baj^ that he asked for 
and obtained an extensive grant of land on its shores from King Charles I, 
of England, He died before he could himself take possession of his new 
territories, but his patent was renewed in 1632 to his son Cecilius, who en- 
deavored to established himself on the south of James River. So bitter, 
however, was the opposition he met with from the English already in pos- 
session of Virginia, that he persuaded King Charles to give him the land on 
the north instead of the south of the original colony. Here, in that "irreg- 
ular triangle" formed by the fortieth degree of latitude, the Potomac River 
and Chesapeake Bay, the second Lord Baltimore planted a little colony of 
English Roman Catholics, naming their new home Maryland, in honor of 
Queen Henrietla ^Maria. 

The new emigrants, numbering some three hundred in all, landed on one 
of the islands at the mouth of the Potomac, now reduced to a mere strip of 
sand, on the 2oth March, 1634, and, after celebrating mass on the beach, 
planted a cross on the loftiest point within reach, round which a second sol- 
emn service was held. From the island, excursions were then made up the 
river by Leonard Calvert — brother to Lord Baltimore, and first governor of 



Heroes of American Discovery. 8i 

the colony — and a few picked men, with a view to selecting the best spot f or 
a first settlement, resulting in the selection of an Indian village which Cal- 
vert succeeded in purchasing from the Indians, with whom also he made an 
offensive and defensive treaty. To the village thus chosen the name of St. 
Mary's was given, and to the neck of land in which it was situated that of 
St. Mary's Point. With truly marvelous rapidity a town of comfortable 
houses gathered about the native wigwams, and the colony seemed likely 
shortly to rival in prosperity that of its older neighbor, Virginia, when that 
neighbor, which had from the first viewed its very existence with jealousy, 
picked a quarrel with its governor, which finally developed into a bitter 
war, extending over many years. 

As will readily be imagined, this unhappy state of things was terribly 
detrimental to the progress of an infant community ; but in 1635, peace was 
so far restored that we find Lord Baltimore making extensive grants of 
land to new settlers, and in 1637 reference is made in historical documents 
to the " hundreds" into which the country of St. Mary's had been divided. 
The loss of the MS. records of Maryland, to which early writers of the colony 
refer the reader for full details of its growth, renders it impossible to trace 
the gradual exploration of the country contained within its present bounda- 
ries ; but enough has, we trust, been said to account for the presence of the Ro- 
man Catholic element in the Southern States of America, and to fit the story 
of Maryland into that mere outline of the early history of the colonies which 
is all that the nature of our subject requires. For many touching anecdotes 
of the ways of the Indians we are indebted to the Jesuit Father AVhite, who, 
after long ministering to the spiritual necessities of his fellow-countrymen 
in St. Mary's, wandered about in the wild and beautiful districts on the north- 
ern banks of the Potomac, striving to instruct the savages in the mysteries of 
the Roman Catholic religion. But whatever the discoveries made by him in 
the various phases of human nature with which he came in contact, he added 
nothing to our geographical knowledge, and we must, leaving his work and 
that of many another noble missionary to be recorded elsewhere, turn from 
the two youngest of the Southern States to tell the romantic story of the 
planting of sister communities along the rocky shores so long known under 
the general name of New England. 



CHAPTER V. 

EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN NEW ENGLAND, NEW NETHERLAND, AND NEW 

SWEDEN. 

"YTT'HILE the first germ of the now vast American organization was 
VV thus struggling into life in Virginia, the coasts of New England 
and of Maine were becoming dotted with settlements of different nationali- 
ties, and the resources of Canada and the districts bounding it on the north 
were gradually being revealed by the researches of French and Dutch ex- 
plorers. 

From the time of Jacques Cartier, the French had claimed possession of 
the Atlantic seaboard from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the south of 
the modern province of Maine ; and as early as 1536, a certain Andre The- 
vet had discovered the mouth of the Penobscot river, and reported very 
favorably of the capabilities of the districts watered by it, and the friendly 
disposition of the Indians with whom he had come in contact. No real 
effort to turn these advantages to account was made, however, until the close 
of the sixteenth century, when Henri lY. of France sent out the Marquis de 
la Roche with orders to found a new French empire on the western coast of 
America. The noble leader of this expedition, charged with so grand a 
commission, found himself hampered in carrying it out by the fact that the 
followers who were to form the nucleus of the "empire" were all convicts 
from the overcrowded French prisons. He contented himself, therefore, 
with landing them on the desolate shores of Sable Island, off the coast of 
Nova Scotia, whence they returned home after twelve years of misery, hav- 
ing accomplished literally nothing. 

In the following year (1599) a trip far richer in results Avas made to Canada 
by a merchant of St. Malo named Pontgravo, and a naval officer named De 
Chauvin, the latter of whom obtained a commission from Henri IV. similar to 
that given De la Roche. The sudden death of De Chauvin, after a prelimi- 
nary trip, prevented him from himself reaping any benefit from the full jiowers 
conferred on him ; but Pontgrave was so convinced by what he had seen on 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



83 



the St. Lawrence of the commercial capabilities of the country watered by 
it, that he returned in 1603, this time accompanied by Samuel Champlain, 
an eager and intelligent student of geography, with whose aid a very thor- 
ough survey of the great water highway was made. 

Provided with trustworthy maps of Canada, Pontgrave and Champlain 
soon returned to France, and, as one result of their work, a new expedition 
was sent out in 1604, led by De Monts, a Huguenot nobleman, who was em- 
powered by Henri I Y. to take possession of and colonize in his name, all 
districts between 40° and 46° N. lat., collectively known as Acadia. 




LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 



De Monts left Prance on the 9th March, 1604, taking Champlain with him 
as a confidential adviser. A short visit to Nova Scotia was succeeded by a 
cruise in the Bay of Fund}', dividing that Peninsula from tlie mainland ; 
and after much hesitation, a small island near the mouth of the St. Croix, a 
river of New Brunswick, was chosen as the site for the first settlement. It 
turned out an unlucky selection, and as soon as the first winter was over, 
De Monts and Champlain went down the coast to try and find a more favor- 
able situation. The harbors of Maine were visited one after another, and in 
any one of them a delightful refuge for the little band of Frenchmen might 
have been found l)ut for the hostility of the Indians, wlio, since the time of 
Thevet, had learned to suspect the sincerity of the white man. 

Finally the colony was removed to a port of Nova Scotia now known as 
Annapolis, but then called Port Royal, whei-e it feebly struggled for exist- 



84 



Heroes of American Discovery, 



ence, first under De Monts, and then nnder liis successor, Pourtrincourt, 
until 1610, when some new life was infused into it by the arrival of certain 
Jesuit missionaries, who, at the instance of the Marquise de Guercheville, to 
whom De Monts had resigned his claim to Acadia, proposed making the lit- 
tle colony the nucleus of a church in the wilderness, into which the natives 
were to be gradually enticed. 

The success of the first missionaries was sufficient to induce others to fol- 
low their example ; and, in 1613, an earnest Frenchman named La Saussaye 
arrived at Port Royal, with two more Jesuit priests and thirty-eight men, 




MOUNT DESERT ISLF. 



with whom, having obtained a guide, he started to sail up the Penobscot, 
intending to plant a second church at the Indian village of Kadesquit, now 
Bangor. 

A dense fog prevented the mouth of the river being i)erceived ; and, when 
it cleared away. La Saussaye found himself opposite the beautiful island of 
Grand Manan, already visited by Champlain, and called by him ^Mont 
Desert, with the mighty rock now known as Great Head standing out against 
the forest-clad buttresses of the Green and Newport Mountains. So beauti- 
ful did Grand Manan appear to the French visitors, and so wide a mission- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 85 

ary field seemed opened to them on it and the neighboring islands, that La 
Sanssaye determined to remain there, and having set up a cross as an em- 
blem of his peaceful intentions, he set his men to work to build and plant. 

But, alas ! Grand Manan was within the limits of the New World already 
ceded to the English, and before the first crops sown by the French had had 
time to germinate. Captain Argall — the same who had carried off Pocahon- 
tas — sailing up the coast on one of his exploring expeditions from Virginia, 
heard of the infant settlement, and bore down upon it, bent on its destruc- 
tion. The French, dreaming of no evil, were, some on land, others, to the 
number of ten, on board their vessel, at anchor off Bar Harbor. 

Boarding the little ship, Argall secretly possessed himself of La Saussaye's 
papers, including the royal commission under which the Frenchman had 
acted, and then gave orders for the bombardment of the group of houses 
which La Saussaye had hoped would have formed the nucleus of the church 
in the wilderness he had set his heart on founding. 

La Saussaye and some of his missionaries were now placed in a boat and 
sent adrift, to find their way back to Port Royal as best they could. Near 
the coast of Nova Scotia they were picked up by some fishing vessels, and 
carried to France. Less fortunate were Father Biard, one of the Jesuit 
priests, and the secular members of the settlement of Mont Desert, for they 
were taken to Virginia by Argall, and there thrown into prison by the au- 
thorities. They were treated with every possible indignity, until their cap- 
tor, fearing the consequences to himself, confessed his theft of La Saussaye' s 
commission, and obtained their release. 

This was but the beginning of that strife between the French and English 
for territory belonging to neither, which finally resulted in a world-wide 
struggle between the two nations. A little later, Argall was sent north, 
with orders to "remove every landmark of France south of the forty-sixth 
degree ; ' ' and he accomplished his work with an energy and thoroughness 
worthy of a better cause. First, every trace of the French occupation was 
obliterated on Grand Manan ; and then Port Royal, now deserted by all but 
a little remnant under the leadership of Biencourt, Pourtrincourt'sson, was 
burned to the ground. 

The next European visitors to Maine were our old friend John Smith and 
Thomas Hunt — the shipmaster who, in 1614, made a cruise up its coasts, 
collecting not only the fish so plentiful in its bays and rivers, but also a 
number of "savages," who were sent to S^^ain by Hunt, and there sold for 



86 



Heroes of Ameriean Discovery. 



slaves. Smith — who, as we have seen in our account of his work in Virginia 
was a clear-headed and far-sighted man — turned his time to better account 
than did his comrade, and embodied the results of a careful survey of Maine 
and the neighboring islands in a map, which he took to England and sub- 



New England 




CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH S MAP OF NEW ENGLAND. 

mitted to Charles I., urging him to inaugurate a company for the colonization 
of a country so rich in resources, and to give to that country the name of 
New England. 

The latter part of this advice was followed at once, and the districts now 
forming the six Eastern States of the Union — namely, Maine, New ITam]>- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 87 

shire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut — were long 
collectively known as New England. Its 65,000 square miles of fertile 
country had already been granted to the Plymouth Company by James I., in 
1606, so that no new scheme of colonization was necessary ; but Smith's re- 
port so stimulated the zeal of the English that in 1615, Richard Hawkins, 
then President of the Northern Company, himself sailed to Maine. So ter- 
rible a civil war was at that time raging among the natives, that Hawkins 
effected nothing ; but in the following year. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of 
the most active members of tlie Company, sent out a physician named Rich- 
ard Vines at his own expense, with instructions to make a settlement some- 
where in New England. 

Vines, a hero in the best sense of the term, spent the winter of 1616-17 at 
a place called Winter Harbor, the exact j)osition of which Ave have been un- 
able to ascertain, though it was probably somewhere between the mouth of 
the Penobscot and Cape Cod. He found the Indians afflicted with a terrible 
disease, which had succeeded, i3erhaps resulted from, the awful civil war al- 
luded to above ; and by the generous kindness and scientific skill with 
which he alleviated their sufferings, he so won upon their affections, that he 
was able to travel alone in the wildest forests, secure of a hospitable recep- 
tion in every wigwam. 

Thus protected by an invisible armor, Vines went up the Saco River till 
he came to its source at Crawford's Notch in the White Mountains of New 
Hampshire ; and, when the spring permitted navigation, he cruised in and 
out of the harbors of Maine till he had acquired a thorough knowledge of 
their geography. 

In 1619, while Vines was still peacefully at work among the Indians, a 
Captain Dermer was sent out by Gorges to exj^lore the coast of New Eng- 
land. Leaving his vessel at the island of Monhegan, situate about twenty 
miles South-west of the mouth of the Penobscot, Dermer made his coast-sur- 
vey in an open pinnace, discovering and passing through the now celebrated 
Long Island Sound, which divides Long Island from New York and Con- 
necticut. On his return trip, Dermer landed on Martha's Vineyard, where 
he was severely wounded in a skirmish Avith the natives, and crossed the 
strip of country near Cape Cod destined to be the first home of the Pilgrim 
Fathers ; but he did nothing to further the cause of colonization, and of his 
career after his voyage nothing is known beyond the fact that he died in ob- 
scurity in Virginia soon after its completion, 



88 Heroes of American Discovery. 

In 1620, the indefatigable Sir Ferdinando Gorges succeeded in obtaining 
a new patent for the Plymouth Company from the King, which dissolved 
its connection with the tSouth Virginia Conii)any, and gave to it all lands 
between the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude ; thus, as those who 
have carefully followed the course of our narrative will recognize at once, 
encroaching alike on the rights of the Southern English Company and of 
the French, who were now hrmly establishing themselves in Canada. Re- 
gardless, however, of the clamor and excitement caused by the concession it 
had won from the English monarch, the new Pl.ymouth Company lost not a 
moment in availing itself of its extended privileges ; and in 1621, the year of 
the arrival in New England of the Pilgrim Fathers, a grant, to which the 
name of Nova Scotia was given, was made by it to Sir William Alexander 
of all lands between Cape Sable and the St. Lawrence. 

The Scotch colonists sent out by Sir William to people his new territory, 
found the sjjots most suitable for settlement already occupied by fishermen 
of different nationalities ; and, failing to obtain any recognition of their 
claims, they shortly returned to their native country. The sea-coasts of 
Maine, New HamiDshire, and Massachusetts were, however, still free to the 
emigrant ; and in 1623, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had hitherto reaped no 
personal benefit in return for all his efforts on behalf of his Company, ob- 
tained from it, in conjunction with John Mason, a grant called Laconia, em- 
bracing all lands between the Merrimac and Kennebec, and stretching away 
to the great Canadian lakes, of which the first had been discovered by the 
Frenchman, Champlain, in 1608. A vessel bearing a number of emigrants 
started for New England in the summer of 1623, and, disembarking on the 
shores of New Hampshire, founded the two settlements of Portsmouth and 
Dover. 

In the same year, Robert Gorges, a son of Ferdinando, was appointed gov- 
ernor-general over the whole of the lands belonging to the Plymouth Com- 
pany, and received as his private share in these lands three hundred square 
miles on Massachusetts Bay. The governor did not, however, care for his 
new possessions, and, after a flying visit to them, ceded them to Captain 
Levett, one of his assistants, who made a thorough exploration of Maine, 
and built a house on its shores, to which he gave the name of York. A per- 
manent English settlement was also founded in Maine, in 1625, by two 
merchants of Bristol, Robert Aldworth and Giles Eldridge by name, who, 
having bought the Monhegan Island and a neighboring point of the main- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 89 

tend, quickly converted their desolate shores into flourishing colonies. In 
1630, too, we find our old friend, Kichard Vines, rewarded at last for his 
long years of work among the Indians by a grant of land on the Saco, while 
an estate of similar extent on the other side of the river was given to his 
comrade, John Oldham. From these two concessions sprung the towns of 
Biddef ord and Saco ; and looking round upon the results obtained at various 
points by different members of the Plymouth Company, under the energetic 
superintendence of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, before the expiration of its pat- 
ent in 1635, we find English communities growing up throughout the length 
and breadth of Maine. It is round the little band of Puritans, however, 
who settled, by sufferance as it were, on the rocky shores of Cai)e Cod, in 
the neighboring province of Massachusetts, that the most absorbing interest 
gathers ; and their history — as that of men who founded religious and polit- 
ical liberty in the future United States, and who are proudly claimed as an- 
cestors by the noblest of our American cousins — must be given in some de- 
tail here. 

To account for the presence of English Puritans on American shores, it is 
necessary to go back a few years, to the beginning of the reign of James I., 
when the brief respite from persecution, enjoyed during the closing years of 
Elizabeth's life by the aspirants after a purer ritual than that sanctioned by 
the State, was succeeded by yet greater oppression than any hitherto en- 
dured. 

At the little village of Scrooby, in the midland counties of England, a 
small body of separatists, under the ministry of William Brewster, were in 
the habit of meeting regularly for worship, and by their zeal and good 
works were winning to their own persuasion large numbers of the common 
people, when their elder and two of their chief members were summoned 
before the Ecclesiastical Commission of York for heresy, and condemned to 
pay a fine of £20 each. This was but the beginning of evils ; fines were suc- 
ceeded by imprisonment and indignities of every kind ; and warned by pre- 
vious experience — some of their co-religionists had fled to Holland a f«w 
years before — the Scrooby separatists resolved, like them, to seek a refuge 
in the Protestant Republic. To the number of 200, the Puritans, most of 
them well-to-do men, disposed as quietly as they could of tbeir lands and 
houses, and agreeing to meet at Boston, in Lincolnshire, stealthily made 
their way from the homes they were willing to forsake rather than abjure 
their belief. 



go Heroes of American Discovery. 

A large number succeeded in embarking on board a vessel bound for 
Holland in Boston Harbor," but they were betrayed by the captain, who 
handed them over to some officers in quest of them. They were searched, 
robbed of all their valuables, and marched back to Boston. A month's im- 
prisonment was succeeded by a second attempt at escape, ending even more 
disastrously than the first. A Dutch ship was this time engaged to convey 
the sufferers for their faith to Holland, and it was arranged that the em- 
barkation should take place at a lonely spot somewhere between Grimsby 
and Hull. The women and children were sent to the rendezvous in a small 
vessel ; the men marched thither in small parties by land. All seemed likely 
to go well. The two detachments met on the low sands of the Lincoln 
shores, and eager greetings were exchanged between husbands and wives, 
fathers and little ones. The men were embarking on the Dutcli vessel, on 
which their families were to join them immediately, when a loud tumult 
suddenly arose on the beach, and down rushed a mob of country people, 
wild with delight at having arrived in time to cut off the heretics. 

The few men already on the Dutch vessel were carried off, whether they 
would or no, by its affrighted master ; and of the remainder, some endeavored 
to protect the women and children, while others hurried off in different 
directions and escaped. From one magistrate to another the luckless emi- 
grants who had been taken prisoners were marched, bearing themselves so 
nobly and simply in their trial, that many were won over to their belief, and 
the hearts of others, even in those unrelenting days, were touched. No 
magistrate would convict them of any worse crime than a desire to be with 
those belonging to them, and, after much wandering to and fro, a public 
subscription was got up on their behalf, which enabled them to take ship 
for Amsterdam, where, in the winter of 1608, nearly the whole of the original 
Scrooby congregation met once more. Even in Amsterdam, however, 
their rest was not to be ; for, in the little English community Avhich had 
already settled there, disputes, some of them most trivial in their character, 
had arisen, and the Scrooby people had therefore little heart to join it. 
They had had enough of conflict with foes at home to make them sick of 
strife, and more than sick of strife among brethren ; and so, with their pastor 
at their head, they moved on to Leyden. 

For a time the sufferers enjoyed peace in the land of their exile. Their 
pastor, Brewster, and his able coadjutor, Robinson, administered the affairs 
gf the little cgmmunity with gentle wisdom. The names of Carver, Cush- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



91 



man, and Winslow stood out as those of burning and shining lights in a 
congregation where all were earnest and zealous. But, as in all human in- 
stitutions, there came a change. Not suddenly, but gradually, almost im- 
perceptibly, error crept in. The purity of the faith was threatened by 
foreign error. The young folks growing up, who had but a dim recollection 
of the native land where they had unconsciously borne witness for the truth, 
^vere showing an undue appreciation of the delights of the world. 

After many a solemn consultation, it was resolved that the little church 
should be transplanted, if possible, to the virgin soil of America, where it 
would have room to grow and spread, unhampered by any of the restric- 
tions by which it was, in the very nature of things, hedged in in Leyden. 

In 1617, when Virginia had already been settled for several years, and 
the Dutch had successfully colonized a considerable portion of New En- 
gland, Robert Cushman and John Carver were sent to England to try and 
obtain from James I. a patent, granting to the Scrooby Puritans lands in 
North Virginia, with the assurance of religious liberty. A whole year was 
consumed in unsatisfactory negotiations ; and finally, the deputies from 
Holland were compelled to be content with a private message from James, 
that he would connive at the settlement in America of their brethren, tliough 
he could not give them his public 
sanction. On the strength of this, 
however, a patent was obtained from 
the Virginia Company in 1619, grant- 
ing to a certain Mr. John Wincob — 
who was to be a kind of lay figure in 
the transaction, taking no active 
share in the matter — some lands on 
the Hudson. As the Dutch were 
already in possession on either side 
of that river, the Pilgrim Fathers 
endeavored to obtain, in addition, 
some sanction from them for their 
presence among them, but they were 
entirely unsuccessful ; and it was 
finally agi*eed that one hundred members of the congregation, many of them 
women and children, should embark, under the care of Brewster as their 
spiritual pastor, and Carver as their civil governor, and take their chance 




92 



Heroes of A?nerican Discovery. 



of finding a home in the New World. When they had done so, the re- 
mainder of their brethren, with the beloved Elder Robinson, were to join 
them. 

Two vessels were chartered for this apparently humble enterprise — the 
Speedioell, which was to convey the pilgrims from Holland to Southampton, 
and the Mayjloioei\ which was to await their arrival at the English port. 
On the 22d July, 1620, after a day of solemn humiliation and prayer, the 
advance guard of the deserted little church marched out among their breth 





LANDING PLACE OF THE PIL- 
GRIMS, AT PLYMOUTH. 



ren, and embarked on the Speedwell in Delft harbor, arriving in due 
course at Southampton, where the Mayflower lay at anchor. 

A fortnight later, both vessels set sail for America ; but, before much 
progress had been made, the Speedwell was compelled to put into Plymouth 
Harbor, being found utterly unseaworthy. This caused a delay of a month ; 
and it was not until the autumn had begun that the Mayflower made her 
final and solitary departure from Plymouth, with all wlio remained faithful 
to their purpos(> on board. A stormy voyage of sixty-tive days brought the 
now world-famous little vessel in sight of Cape Cod, and, after an unsuccess- 



Heroes of American Discevery. 



93 



ful attempt to bear southward for the mouth of the Hudson, anchor was 
cast opposite the low coast, which had already been the refuge of so many 
tempest-tossed wanderers to the West. 

On the 11th November, 1620, after a solemn agreement among all the pil- 
grims to hold to each other and submit to their governor, John Carver, the 
first landing was effected. Falling on their knees ujDon the beach, the emi- 
grants now returned thanks to God for their merciful deliverance from the 
perils of the deep, and, this pious duty over, sixteen men, under the doughty 
Captain Miles Standish, were sent forth on a reconnaissance, while the wo- 
men busied themselves in washing their travel-soiled garments, and making 
preparations for the general comfort. 

The result of the reconnaissance was far from satisfactory. Standish and 
hiis men had to cut their way through dense underwood, and were unable to 
open any communication with the natives, who fled at their approach. A 
little maize which had been buried by 
the Indians as their store for the winter 
was all the wanderers brought back to 
the vessel from the jDromised land. 

Later trips being equally unsuccess- 
ful, the emigrants re-emb[irked, and the 
Mayfloioer was taken a little further u]^ 
the western coast of Cape Cod, whence 
excursions were made to different points 
in an open boat by a few sturdy explor- 
ers, who landed on Clark's Island — so 
called after the first man to step on its 
shores — and finally, on the 11th Decem- 
ber, crossed the modern harbor of 
Plymouth, and landed on or near the bible brought over in the mayflow- 
rock which has since been revered as the ^^^ i^ pilgrim hall, Plymouth. 
sacred "corner-stone of a nation," the " altar and bulwark of religion and 
liberty." 

Convinced that the fertile, well- watered tract stretching away from the 
sea to the pine-clad hills was the very site for a settlement, the men hastened 
to report their discovery to their expectant comrades on board ship, and on 
the 15th December, the Ilayfloioer left her anchorage off Cape Cod to sail to 
Clark's Island and halt half between it and the rock of Plymouth, so-called 




94 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



ill remembrance of the port in the south of Enghmd from which the little 
vessel hud made her final start. 

On Christmas Day, 1620, after the site for the erection of the first house 
of the new settlement had been chosen at a spot called by the Indians Pa- 

tuxet, and christened Plymouth 
by the new-comers, the main body 
of the emigrants went on shore. 
Many are the traditions which 
have gathered round the rock — of 
which a portion is still shown to 
visitors — on which these founders 
of a great nation first set foot, 
and in all of them the names of 
the governor, Carver, and the 
military captain, Standish, stand 
out as those of men who were 
% equal to every emergcmcy. A 
dreary winter, with starvation 
and disease staring the settlers in 
the face at homo, and hostile In- 
dians hovering about in the out- 
skirts of the little encampment, 
ready to take advantage of any 
sign of weakness, was succeeded by a somewhat bri<i-hter spring, and toward 
the end of March, 1621, as the leaders of the colony were discussing their 
future plans in full conclave, an incident occurred which inspired them with 
new hope of the successful realization of those X)lans. 

A niiked Indian suddenly stalked into the midst of the white men, and 
greeted them in their native tongue with the words, " AVelcome, English- 
men ! " The sensation caused by this maybe imagined. The Indian, who 
said his name was Samoset, was eagerly plied with questions, and told how 
he had been one of the men carried into slavery by Hunt, who, it will be 
remembered, had accompanied John Smith on his visit to Maine. Aft^r 
many vicissitudes, Samoset had got back to his native land, and, hearing 
from his comrades that some white men had settled at Patuxet, he had 
come to make their acquaintance, and to inquire if they came with peaceable 
intent or as man-stealers. Convinced that they were certainly not the latter, 




TOMB OK TIIK MATli OF THE " MAVJ'LOWEU.' 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



95 



though probably a little puzzled at the explanations given of their presence 
so far from home, Samoset i^romised to be their messenger to the Wampan- 
oags and Nansets of the neighborhood, assuring the chiefs of the colony that 
the hostile attitude 



of these tribes had 
been the result of 
the ill-treatment 
they had received at 
the hands of Hunt 
and Dermer. 

A few days after 
this first interview, 
Samoset brought 
some other friendly 
Indians to Ply- 
mouth, including a 
certain Squanto, 
who had been taken 
to England by 
Weymoath fifteen 
long yf;ars before, 
and brought back 
by Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges. The pres- 
ence of Samoset 
and Squanto in 
their midst was 
fruitful of the best 
results to the colo- 
nists. By their 
means, a treaty, 
offensive and de- 
fensive, was made 
the 




WINSLOW .S V/SIT TO MASSASOIT. 



between the white men and the greatest chief of 
neighborhood, a stately warrior named Massasoit. dwelling at a 
village on Rhode Island ; and, free from the fear of surprises, the colonists 
were now able to extend their plantations and sow seed for future needs. 
Small parties were detailed to explore the bay, the site of the modern Bos- 



96 Heroes of American Discovery, 

ton was visited, and the close of the first summer foand the affairs of 
Plymouth in a very flourishing condition. 

In November, 1621, a reinforcement of thirty-five emigrants arrived from 
England in the ship Fortune^ and the first fruits of the labors of the early 
colonists, consisting of timber and furs, were sent home in her. The second 
winter passed over successfully, but the spring of 1622 opened gloomily. A 
terrible massacre of the whites had taken place in Virginia, and, encouraged 
by the success of their brethren in the south, the Narragansetts of Massa- 
chusetts sent a message of defiance to the colonists of Plymouth, thinking 
that the time had come to possess themselves of the goods of the intruders 
in their land. The war-challenge of the red men consisted in the sending to 
the camp of the enemy of a bundle of arrows bound together with a rattle- 
snake' s skin ; the reply of the English was the return of the same skin full 
of powder and ball — a silent indication that they were ready for the arrows, 
which the Indians did not fail rightly to interpret. 

A lull ensued, and the English were beginning to hope that the real ex- 
change of arrows and shot would not come off, when there arrived from En- 
gland a little party of emigrants who were not Puritans, andwho, while they 
consumed the stores of their fellow-countrymen, did nothing to help to re- 
place them, and, moreover, imbittered their relations with the Indians by 
stealing their corn and carrying off their women. After much mischief had 
been done^ the governor, Bradford, who had taken the place of Carver on 
his death in the previous spring, succeeded in weeding out the evil-doers 
from among his flock, but not, unfortunately, in warding off the results of 
their misconduct. At their young settlement of Weymouth, on the north- 
ern shores of the Bay of Plymouth, the new colonists behaved in a manner 
which excited alike the anger and contempt of the natives. It was decided 
that they should be exterminated, and as their white comrades at Plymouth 
would doubtless try to avenge them, these must be slain at the same tiine. 

All was ready for the massacre of both parties, when Massasoit, who had 
made the first treaty with Carver, was taken dangerously ill. Knowing 
nothing of the plot laid by him against them, the English of Plymouth sent 
two of their members, Edward Winslow and John Hamden, to express their 
sympathy with him, and, if possible, relieve his sufferings. Arrived, all 
unsuspicious of the danger they were running, at the village of Pokanoket, 
on Rhode Island, the two Christian emissaries found Massasoit in what 
seemed a dying condition, but Winslow suggested several remedies, which 



Heroes of Avierican Discovery. 



97 



liad an apparently miraculous effect. The strength of the dying chief re- 
turned to him, and, to the astonishment of all, he sat up and called for food, 
which he had not been able to swallow for several days. In a short time he 
was completely restored to health, and in his gratitude to his visitors he 
revealed to them the plot against the two colonies, adding that he had been 
urged to join in it himself, but had refused. He recommended the white 
men to return home without delay, and to defeat the plot against their peo- 
ple by slaying the ringleaders, whose names he gave at once. 

Back again in their camp, Winslow and Hamden lost no time in laying 
the information of which they were possessed before their leaders, and it 
was at once resolved to send out a small party under Miles Standish, first to 
warn the colonists at Weymouth, and then to get the Indians named by 
Massasoit into their power. 

With eight men — he refused to take more, lest his object should be guessed 
at by the natives — Miles Standish started on his hazardous enterprise in a 
little shallop, and went by sea to 
Weymouth, where he found the 
colonists in a terrible condition, 
scarcely able to subsist on the 
scanty supplies which were all 
they had brought with them, and 
subject to perpetual insults from 
the Indians, who appeared to be 
determined to get as much sport 
as j)ossible out of them before the 
final blow was struck. 

Having relieved the immediate 
necessities of his unlucky fellow- 
countrymen, and directed them 
to keep together as much as 
possible, Standish endeavored to 
open negotiations with the In- 
dians, but they had lost all fear 
of the white men, and met his - =----- ^ -_^.,-— 

advances with ridicule. See- ^"'^^ standish's sword, pot, and plattek— 
ing that it was absolutely neces- preserved in pilgrim hall, new Plymouth. 
saryto make an example, although hitherto no blood had been shed by the 




98 



Heroes of Amej'ican Discovery. 



Puritans, the Cliristian captain surreeded in enticing two of the ringleaders, 
Pecksuot and Wituwaniat byname, into a house, and there slew them, as- 
sisted by two or three of his men. Tlie result was what he had anticix)ated — 
the heads being gone, the minor members of the conspiracy lied. A few En- 
glish, who had neglected the advice to keep together, were murdered, and 
one or two other Indians fell in a titful struggle between scattered parties 
at isolated points. The general massacre was averted, however, and out of 




FANKllL HALL, BOSTON. 



consideration for the benefit to all obtained by his severe measure. Cap- 
tain jNliles Standish was forgiven by his superiors for the shedding of blood, 
tliough, on hearing of the aifair, Mr. Pobinson wrote from Holland, "Con- 
cerning the killing of those poor Indians . . . oh, how happy a thing 
had it been if you had converted some before you had killed any." 

The energetic conduct of Standish, however it may have been judged by 
those who were not on the spot, was. so to speak, the foundation-stone of 
the pros]HM'ity of the Plymouth colony, which henceforth grew with won- 
derful rapidity, sending out oll'slu>ots in various directions, Avhich in their 
turn, became in due ct)urse parent communities. Internal ditiiculties with 
certain schismatic members, named Lyford and Oldham, were dealt Avith in 



Heroes of American Discovery. 99 

the same rigorous manner as those with the Indians ; and though the lirst 
result — condemuation of the conduct of the settlers by the London members 
of the Plymouth Company — seemed, by cutting olf their supplies, to threaten 
their very existence, it resulted in the breaking up of a confederation which 
had long held within its heterogeneous elements the seeds of dissolution. 
Left entirely to their own resources, the Puritans developed new energies ; 
and they were already carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians, when 
there came news of the settlement of some rival colonists on Cape Ann, 
which the Plymouth people considered to be within their territory. 

Captain Standish was sent out to deal with the intruders, and found that 
they consisted of a little band of fishermen sent out by an obscure Company 
known as the Dorchester, and included among them, not only Lyford and 
Oldham of troublous memory, but also the sufferer for righteousness' sake, 
Roger Conant, who had long ago left Plymouth on account of his religious 
opinions, and ^^ as now a leader among the new colonists. Brought face to 
face with his fellow-countrymen, Standish seems to have hesitated how best 
to deal with them, and to have been persuaded by Conant to leave them un- 
molested. From this slight incident arose great results. No longer in dread 
of their lives, Conant and his companions presently removed from the dreary 
shores of Cape Ann to Naumkeag, now Salem, on the mainland, and there 
throve so well, that the Dorchester Company was moved to send forth others 
to their assistance. A patent was obtained from the original New England 
Company, granting to its rival a tract of country between the rivers Charles 
and Merrimac, and to this new home a sturdy reformer named John Endi- 
cott led forth a few Puritan pilgrims in 1628. In 1629 — by which time the 
numbers of his colony had been doubled, though by what means is not ex- 
plained— Endicott was joined by John Winthrop with no less than 800 emi- 
grants, who, after resting a while at Salem, dispersed in small parties in 
various directions within the limits of the territory assigned to them, some 
among them settling at the Indian village of Mishawan, or the Great Spring, 
to which the name of Charlestown had been given by a few of Endicott' s 
settlers a year or two before. 

In the course of the ensuing year, 1630, when the Dorchester had devel- 
oped into the more imposing Massachusetts Bay Company, the emigrants 
received many fresh additions to their numbers ; and early in the summer a 
little party moved from Charlestown to Shawmut Point, where the modern 
city of Boston now stands. The capital of Massachusetts — which still re- 



lOO 



Heroes of A7neruan Discovery. 



tains in its qnaint, irregular streets something of tlie impress of its rugged 
founders, the Puritans — was begun, says Bryant, in a frolic, the first settlers 
to land on its beach having been a boat-load of young people, who, after a 
playful struggle as to who should first disembark, yielded that honor to 
" Anne Pollard, a lively young girl, the lirst white woman who ever stepped 
on the spot" so memorable in the history of the United States. 
The earliest settlement of Europeans at Shawmut was begun in August, 




HOUSE IN BOSTON WHERE THE TEA PLOT IS SUPPOSED 
TO HAVE ORIGINATED. 



1630, and was at first called Tri -mountain, on account of the three summits 
then crowning one of the high hills overlooking the harbor, and which, now 
known as Beacon Hill, bears the imposing State House. On the 7tli Septem- 
ber, the settlement being then considerably advanced, it was resolved that 
it should be called Boston, in memory of the city of that name in Lincoln- 
shire, from which many of its inhabitants had come. To complete the early 
history of Boston, we must add that its site, with all the surrounding coun- 
try, was claimed by a certain Blackstone, an Englishman, who had long 



Heroes of American Discovery,, 



lOI 



7v^ 



before settled near a "fountain of 
sweet waters," which in those days 
bubbled uj) somewhere on the present 
Common. His title as original occu- 
pier was considered to be superseded 
by the royal grant to the Pilgrims, 
but in many accounts of the matter 
we find it recorded that in 1635 John 
Blackstone received £35 for the relin- 
quishment of his "right," 

The foundation of Boston was suc- 
ceeded by that of many other now 
famous towns of Massachusetts, and, 
ten years after the arrival of Conant 
at Salem, 21,000 emigrants are said 
to have settled in New England, one 
and all being Puritans, most of whom 
had been driven from their homes in 
their native land by the intolerance 
of the Government. Among those 
Puritans, however, were many who were unable to conform to the rigid 
l^ractices or subscribe to the stern tenets of the Massachusetts churches, and 
to this fact was due the foundation of the first settlement in the neighboring 
state of Rhode Island. In 1031, a certain "godly minister," named Roger 
Williams, arrived at Boston with his wife, Mary, and, finding the congrega- 
tion there not entirely to his taste, he rex)aired to the older community of 
Salem, and for some little time acted there as assistant preacher, winning 
much love from the people by his earnest zeal and loving sympathy, but 
shortly becoming involved in serious trouble with the elders of the church 
on account of his heretical opinions. 

Banished to Plymouth, and there but cokll y received, Williams employed 
his exile in learning the Indian dialects, and printing a work on them which 
created great astonishment in England. In 1034 he returned to Salem, where 
he was eagerly received by his people, but was soon again compelled to flee, 
for questioning the right of the settlers to take the lands of the Indians 
without purchase. Our old acquaintance, AVinthrop, now Governor of 
Massachusetts, who appears to have had a private leaning toward the en- 




i02 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



thusiastic young reformer, gave him a hint that he would do well to go to 
Narragansett Bay in the South, that being without the jurisdiction of any 
English Company, while it was within reach of the Indians, whose love he 
had won by his champiouship of their cause. To the Bay, therefore, though 
it was now mid-winter, Roger directed his course, and, early in 1636, he 
found a refuge with the chief, Massasoit, whose life had been saved by the 
English nine years before, and who now gave his white brother some land 




PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. 



on the Seekonk River, east of the modern Providence, where in the early 
spring the lonely hero built himself a home. He was soon joined by a few 
friends from Salem ; and, having received n kindly hint from Governor 
Williams of Plymouth, that he would be less likely to be interfered with on 
the other side of the river, the site of his house being within the original 
grant to the Pilgrim Fathers, ho removed with his companions to the Indian 
village of Mooshausick, to ^^ hicli lie gave the name of Providence, in "grat- 
itude to Go(i's merciful providence to him in Jjis distress, and also because 



Heroes of American Discovery. 103 

he hoped his new home might be a shelter for those distressed in con- 
science." 

The dream of Williams was realized. "Slate Rock," as the stone on 
which he landed from his boat on the Seekonk in his search for a new home 
was called, soon be(;ame wo]"n with the tread of the oppressed, who came to 
him for help in their troubles, fleeing, some from the bigotry of the Boston 
Puritans, some from the vengeance of the authorities for civil offenses. As 
a matter of necessity, the Providence colony, recruited from such sources, 
was not only a thorn in the side of the Massachusetts Company, but one 
presenting special difficulties to its founder, who, however, in spite of much 
trouble in the flesh, was pre-eminently successful in all he undertook. Two 
years after his first arrival, he bouglit extensive tracts of land on Rhode 
Island, and in 1642 his little community was so prosj^erous, that he went to 
England to obtain a charter for the colony he had founded. On his return 
to Providence, he was able to be of great use to the other colonies in their 
dissensions with the Indians, who looked npon him as their champion ; but 
his heresy was never forgiven, and when, in 1643, a confederation for mutual 
protection was made between the New England colonies, Rhode Island was 
left out. 

Roger Williams was, however, but one of many to go forth from the 
original Massachusetts colonies and found new communities, each of which, 
while sharing the general character of the Puritan settlements, was distin- 
guished by some special religious peculiarity^ into the nature of which none 
but the initiated could enter with full api)reciation. In 1631, intercourse 
with the Indians of the Connecticut Valley — already, as we shall presently 
see, colonized by the Dutch — was opened by a visit to Boston of Wahginna- 
cut, a sagamore, or chief, from the river Quonchtacut, on the west of Narra- 
gansett, who gave the whites a general invitation to settle in his country, 
which he reported to be very fruitful. 

In 1633, one William Holmes, taking with him a few sturdy followers, 
and also the frame of a house ready to set up in a suitable locality, left 
Plymouth in obedience to the call of the sagamore, and, in spite of the op- 
position of the Dutch, opened a successful trade with the Indians, although, 
so far as we have been able to ascertain, he failed to make any permanent 
settlement in the new district. This was, however, atoned for by the emi- 
gration to the Connecticut Valley, in the fall and winter of 1634, of several 
different parties from Massachusetts, who made their way on foot, driving 



I04 Heroes of American Discovery. 

their cattle before them through the pathless forests, and settled on the 
various rivers, enduring terrible hardships in the first winter, but holding 
their own through privations which would have daunted any but the stern 
Pilgrim Fathers, already inured to suffering. 

The little town of Windsor was already a thriving community, carrying on 
a brisk trade with the natives in furs, when, in 1635, John Winthrop, son of 
the Governor of Massachusetts, arrived from England, bearing a commission 
as Governor of Connecticut under the patent of Lord Say and Seal, Lord 
Brook, and others, to whom the district had previously been granted. 
Winthrop's first care was to build a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut, 
to which he gave the name of Saybrook, in honor of his two noble patrons. 
The Dutch, who claimed the whole of Connecticut — in right of prior dis- 
covery and possession, and, best title of all, purchase from the Lidians — had, 
three years previously, fastened the arms of the States-General to a tree, at 
a spot they had named Kievit's Hoeck and now dispatched two vessels from 
the South to maintain their rights. 

Before the vesi^els could arrive, however, the Dutch arms had been torn 
down, and a hideous, grinning face carved on the tree-trunk in their stead, 
while the landing-place was defended by two cannon, which were enough, 
in those primitive days, to scare away a whole party of warriors. 

This energetic beginning was followed up by other vigorous ju-oceedings, 
and so prosperous did the colonies founded by "Winthroji become, that a 
tide of emigration to Connecticut rapidly set in, alike from the mother 
country and from her dependencies. In the latter end of 1635, thousands of 
pilgrims arrived from England, and in June, 1636, the whole of the church 
of Newton, one of the later communities of Massachusetts, led by its minis- 
ters. Hooker and Stone, went forth to seek, in the fruitful lands in the 
South, a freer field for their spiritual groAvth. The narrative of their jour- 
ney reads like a chapter of romance. Their cattle were driven before them, 
and Mrs. Hooker, who was an invalid, was carried in a litter in their midst. 
The leaders on horseback, the remainder on foot, threaded their way slowly 
through the vast forests of Massachusetts, and, after a tramp of many 
weeks, they reached the site of the present town of Hartford, so called after 
the English home of Stone. 

Here a final halt was made. Building and cultivating at once began, and 
Hartford bid fair soon to rival Windsor in iirosj^erity, when the first low 
muttering of the storm which was to involve old and new settlements in one 



Heroes oj Anieriean Discovery, 105 

I'oniinoii ruin was heard in the distance. The iiatives, ahirmed by the rapid 
growth of tlie power of the English, begnn that series of aggressions which 
resulted in the lirst great Indian war ; but before we enter into its details, 
we must turn for a moment to the South, and account for the presence of 
the Dutch as neighbors of the New England settlei-s. 

The close of the sixteenth century witnessed the overthrow of the Spanish 
power in the Netherlands, and, relieved from the oppression under which it 
had so long groaned, the Dutch republic was able, like the rest of the world, 
to turn its attention to that golden prize, the short passage to India, the 
supposed existence of which had instigated so many important expeditions 
from other countries. Already, long before tlunr independence was 
acknowledged by the Spanish, the United Netherlands possessed a navy 
second to none in Europe, and, in the very year (1.097) of the signing of the 
Treaty of Utrecht, the advanced guard of Dutch geographers were strug- 
gling for their lives in the dreary solitudes of Nova Zembla. 

Leaving the adventures of Barentz, Ilceinskerk, and others, we join, as 
the first Dutchman to travel in the districts now under consideration, the 
celebrated Henry Hudson, who, after one or two unsuccessful voyages to the 
North-east, under the auspices of the English Muscovy Company, was in- 
vited, in 1600, to take service with the Dutch East India Company. He con- 
sented, and was appointed by his new employers to the command of yet 
another expedition to the extreme North, his instructions, however, being 
this time of a sufRciently elastic nature to admit of his altering his course 
if desirable. 

Hudson set sail from Amsterdam on his new trip, on the 4tli April, 1609, 
in a modest little vessel named the Half Moon, with a crew of some sixteen 
or eighteen Dutch and English sailors, and, having crossed the Atlantic in 
safety, he steered due north for Nova Zembla. Before long, the ice, as he 
had expected, effectually barred his progress, and, after a consultation with 
his men, he determined to alter his course, and seek for a south-Avest passage 
somewhere to the north of the English colony of Virginia. A flying visit 
for fresh water was then paid to the Faroe Islands, and, after touching at 
Newfoundland, the HaJf Moon sailed down the coast of North America, 
anchoring on the 18th July, in a large bay, j)robably that of Penobscot. 
Here a party of Indians, already used to peaceful trading with the French, 
came out in two canoes to make acquaintance with their visitors, and were 
met — to the shame of the Dutch be it spoken — by a boat-load of armed 



io6 Hn'ocs of American Discovery. 

sailoi^, who took many of them prisoners, and afterward burned their vil- 
lage. This outrage completed, the Half Moon proceeded on her voyage, 
passing Nantucket and Martlia's Vineyard, and even, it is sui)posed, enter- 
ing Chesapeake Bay, thougli without holding any intercourse wiih the 
Europeans there established. 

At Chesapeake Bay, Hudson once more turned his vessel's head northward, 
and, cruising along the coast, discovered what was afterward, in honor of 
the first governor of Virginia, called Delaware Bay. No south-west passage 
had yet been found, but on the 3d August the watchers on deck saw what 
they took to be the mouth of three rivers, and which turned out to be the 
beautiful harbor now^ forming the entrance to the capital of the New World. 

Foiled in his attempt to enter the broadest of the three "rivers" by the 
bar at its mouth, Hudson ordered the Hctlf Moon to be steered into the 
deeper bay, now^ known as Sandy Hook, and there passed the night in 
anxious expectation as to what the morning would bring to light. That 
morning dawned on a scene of exquisite, and still, in spite of its changed 
aspect, of world-famous beauty. The island of Manhattan, Long Island, the 
Narrows, and many another familiar physical feature of the Bay of New York, 
were there ; but instead of the bristling fortifications and the well-built 
residences of wealthy citizens of New York of the present da3% the shores 
of mainland and islands were dotted with native wigwams^nstead of the 
fiery little gunboats and stately men-of-war now guarding the entrance to 
the great metrojiolis, the canoes of Indians were shooting hither and thither, 
in undisguised astonishment at the sudden apparition of the I falf Moo fi. 

A quarrel with the Indians inaugurated the first day's work at the mouth 
of the Htulson, as it had done that on the Penobscot ; but the death of one 
Englishman, a certain John Colman, was in this case the only untoward re- 
sult. The whole of the shores of the Bay of New York were thoroughly ex- 
plored, and the great river itself, named after its discoverer, was then entered. 

Past the low shores of Manhattan Island, and into the vast expanses of 
the Tappan Zee and Havcrstroo, sailed the I/a If Moon, entering bej'ond 
them the lovely scenery of the Highlands, which rise abruptly to a height 
of some 1,200 to 1,600 feet on cither side of the broad waters of the Hudson, 
until at last the mighty Catskill Mountains, stretching away in silent 
grandeur on the right bank of the river near its junction with the Mohawk, 
were sighted, and navigation became difficult, the stream daily growing 
sliallower and shallower. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



lo: 



On the 18th August, 1609, Hudson landed near the site of a town now 
bearing his name, where he was most hospitably entertained by an old 
chieftain. On the 19th he passed the site of the present Albany, and on the 
22d he came to the rocky promontory close to which the modern village of 
Half Moon now stands, at which point he decided to retrace his steps, the 
viver being apparently too shallow for further navigation. 

The return trip down the Hudson was, alas ! darkened by a terrible act of 







THE HALF MOON AT THE MOUTH OF THE HUDSON. 



oppression on the part of the white men. An Indian, one of a crowd of vis- 
itors who had come down from the mountain to see the wonders on board 
the Half Moon^ was carrying off a few trifling articles he had stolen, when 
he was detected by the mate, who at once shot him dead. A general melee 
ensued, the natives were hotly pursued by Hudson's men, and, though only 
one other was then killed, the next day a party of dusky Avarriors bore down 
upon the European vessel ; a fierce struggle took ])lare, and though the 
Dutch were victorious, all hope of further exploration was at an end. Dif- 



io8 Heroes of American Discovery. 

ferences with, his superior officei-s, and quarrels among liis crew, added \o 
the difficulties of Hudson; and wlien. in November, 1609, he put into Dart- 
mouth Harbor after having made one of the greatest discoveries of the day, 
he found himself in disgrace both with the English Government and his 
Dutch employers, who were each jealous of the other. 

To make our story complete, we may add that, after a vexatious delay at 
Dartmouth, Hudson resumed service under the Muscovy Company, and. 
with its sanction, sailed in the spring of 1610 on the fatal voyage which re- 
sulted in the discovery of the great bay bearing his name. Sailing north- 
westward, in an English vessel, with a crew of twenty-three men, Hudson 
reached Greenland in June, and made his way thence without delay to the 
wide strait giving access to the vast inland sea now known as Hudson's Bay. 

Astonished at a discovery so little expected, and convinced that great re- 
sults might ensue from the thorough exploration of the country around, our 
hero resolved to winter in these desolate latitudes, and pursue his work in 
the spring of 1611. The failure of his jtrovisions compelled him, however, 
to relinquish this grand scheme, and the belief which obtained among his 
men, that he intended to return home, leaving some of them behind to perish 
miserably, caused a mutiny. Hudson, his young son, and one or tAvo sailors 
who remained true to him. were overpowered, j^laced in a boat, and cast adrift 
on the waters of the bay he had discovei'ed at so terrible a cost : and of his 
further sutff^rings. or of his final fate, no rumor has ever reached Europe, 
though an expedition was sent in quest of liim from England. 

Meanwhile the Dutch, eager to precede the English in taking possession 
of the fertile districts watered by the Hudson, lost not a moment in follow- 
ing up the discoveries inaugurated by their Government, and in the three 
years succeeding Hudson's first voyages, one private merchant after another 
sent out agents to trade with the natives and found colonies among them. 
As early as 1613. Manhattan Island owned its Dutch fort and surrounding 
buildings, and was chief among many stations for the collection of peltries, 
or furs, and their dispatch to European ports ; while the bays of the main- 
land as far south as the mouth of the Delaware, were dotted with clusters 
of the huts of the Dutch fishermen. 

Among the leaders of the various early Dutch enterju-ises in these ivgions. 
Hendrick Christansen. Adriaen Block, and Cornelis Jacobsen May stand 
out pre-eminent : the tirst as having founded the first large fort — that called 
Nassau — on the Hudson ; the second for his exploration of Long Island 



Heroes of American Discovery. 109 

Sound, and discovery of the Connecticut river ; and the third for his survey 
of the coast of New Jersey, still commemorated by the name given to New 
Jersey's soutliern headland — Cape Ma3\ 

On the 11th October, 1614, after long and tedious preliminary negotia- 
tions, a charter, insuring to them a monopoly of the fur trade for three 
years, was granted to the Dutch, and the name of New Netherland given 
to the region between New France and Virginia — i.e.^ the Atlantic seaboard 
between 40" and 45° N. lat. These three years, during which no rival Euro- 
pean power interfered, were turned to the best account by the sturdy 
colonists from Holland, and their scouts penetrated far into the interior on 
the west, one party, it is supposed, having reached the upper waters of the 
Delaware, and descended it in native canoes to the mouth of its tributary, 
the Schuylkill, which is now known to rise in the carboniferous highlands 
of Pennsylvania, and to join the Delaware five miles below the capital of 
that state. 

The story goes, that, on this last named expedition, three traders were 
taken prisoners by the Indians, and held h\ them as hostages, until their 
prolonged absence exciting the anxiety of their comrades, an expedition 
was sent in quest of them, under the command of Cornells Hendricksen, 
who, in a little yacht named the Restless, explored the whole of Delaware 
Bay, ascended one of the rivers tiowing into it, and brought back his fellow- 
countrymen in triumph. 

On Hendricksen' s return to the parent settlement, he gave such glowing 
accounts of the capabilities of the new "havens, lands, and places" visited, 
that his employers— their original charter being then on the eve of exj^ira- 
tion — determined if possible to obtain another, giving them more ample 
powers. Their petition was refused ; but, in 1621, a far more imjiortant en- 
terprise than theirs was sanctioned hy the States-General of the Netherlands, 
who granted to the now famous "West India Company a monopoly of all the 
lands known by the Dutch as New Netherland, and which included much of 
the territory to which the English had given the name of New England. 

The first emigrants to take advantage of the extensive j)rivileges of the 
West India Company were a little band of Walloons, members of that much- 
persecuted and sturdy race, descended from the old Gallic Belgfe, whose 
brave struggle against the Germans in the old mountain fastnesses of the 
Ardennes had saved them from extermination. The same constitutional 
impulsiveness and perseverance, activity and skill, which kept the Walloons 



no Heroes of American Discovery. 

alive and i>rosi3erous tlirougliout all subsequent changes in their native land, 
rendered them well fitted to light their own battle in a new scene ; and when 
the Dutch authorities heard of their expulsion from their homes on account 
of their religious opinions, they most wisely invited them to settle in New 
Netherland. 

The first city founded by the Dutch under the new charter — or, to be more 
strictly accurate, by the Walloons, under the West India Company — was 
the modern Albany, the capital of the present State of New York, which 
was at first called Fort Orange, and was the second town of importance built 
within the limits of the United States, Jamestown having been the first. 
The foundations were laid in 1623, and in less than a year it had become a 
flourishing settlement, while trading stations established at the same time 
on Manhattan Island, the Delaware, Connecticut, and other rivers, grew with 
equal rapidity. In course of time, difficulties with the Indians led to the 
temporary abandonment of Fort Orange, and the building on Manhattan 
Island, on a site purchased for twenty-four dollars, of Fort Amsterdam, 
round which clustered the town long known as New Amsterdam, and now 
under its English name of New York — it having been taken by the British 
in 1G64 — the chief city and most important seaport of America. 

The climax of Dutch prosperity in America was reached about 1635, when 
the settlers in New Amsterdam became involved in difficulties with the En- 
glish of Connecticut, who drove them, step by step, and little by little, from 
every outpost they had gained. In 1636 began the terrible Indian war in 
which the English and Dutch Avere alike involved, and all the Dutch inhab- 
itants of Staten Island were murdered by the fierce Algonquins ; and in 1637 
a company of Swedes and Finns, most of them religious refugees, arrived in 
Delaware Bay, where, having purchased extensive territories from the In^ 
dians, they quietly established themselves, calling their American home 
New Sweden, and their first fort, built at the mouth of the Delaware, Fort 
Christiana, after the young Swedish Queen. 

In vain did the Dutch protest against what they looked upon as an inva- 
sion of their rights. Settlement after settlement of Swedes was established 
on both banks of the Delaware, and not until 1665 were the Dutch able to 
gain xwssession of New Sweden, which, however, ten years later, fell, with 
the whole of the Dutch territories of America, into the hands of the English. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT LAKES OF CANADA AND OF THE HEAD- 
WATERS OP THE MISSISSIPPI. 

"TTTHILE the English were firmly establishing themselves in New England, 

VV and the Dutch and Swedes were strnggling for the mastery in the 
present states of New York and Delaware, discoveries of vital importance 
were being made by the French in Canada, or as it was tlien called, New 
France. We have already mentioned Samuel Champlain, who accompanied 
both Pontgrave and De Monts in their early expedition to Maine, and was 
the author of the first scientific map of the St. Lawrence. It was this Cham- 
plain, a true hero of geographical discovery, who paved the way for the 
establishment of French powder in Canada, and to whom w^e, as the success- 
ors of the French, owe an undying debt of gratitude. 

In the winter of 1604, when the little settlement at Port Royal was strug- 
gling in that feeble infancy destined to be its only existence, Champlain 
made it the starting point for many a trip to the South, visiting Cape Cod^ 
which his men named Cape Blanc, from its far-stretching white sands — long 
before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. In 1608, when Pourtrincourt, 
the successor of De Monts, had returned to France in disgust, and Henry 
Hudson was preparing for the great voyage resulting in the discovery of the 
river named after him, Champlain was starting wdth a few faithfiil followers 
on an overland journey through perfectly untrodden districts watered by 
the St. Lawrence. 

On the 3d July, after crossing the whole of Maine in a north-westerly 
direction, so far as w^e can make out from fragmentary records of his work, 
Champlain reached Stadacona, where, it wdll be remembered, Cartier spent 
Ids first winter on the St. LaAvrence, and at once set to work to erect a fort, 
to which the name of Quebec was given, either then or very shortly after- 
ward. 

The w^inter was spent in winning the friendship of the Algonquin Indians, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



"3 



chief of tlie three races then occupying tlie basin of the St. Lawrence, and in 
learning from them the capabilities of their country. In a terrible struggle 
then going on between the Algonquins and their neighbors, the Iroquois, or 
Five Nations, Champlain was able to give both advice and material assist- 
ance, and, as a reward, he was escorted by the former, in the spring of 1610, 
up the St. Lawrence as far as its junction with the Iroquois, now the Riche- 
lieu River, ascending which he discovered Lake Peter, and came, after some 
little difficulty with the rapids, so characteristic of the tributaries of the 




THE FIKST HOUSE ERECTED IN QUEBEC. 



great river, to the beautiful sheet of water now bearing his own name, and 
which has so often figured in the history of the struggle between the French 
and English in Canada. 

Though prevented by the hostility of the Iroquois, or Five Nations — occu- 
pying the whole of the South-west of Canada — from actually visiting them, 
Champlain, on this trip, approached very nearly the sources of the Hudson 
in the lofty Adirondack Mountains, on the south-west of the great lake, 
and in the north-eastern corner of the present State of New York, thus con- 
necting his own work with that of his great Dutch contempora/y. 

The discovery of Lakes Peter and. Champlain may be said t>e have closed 



114 



//rrot's of American I^iscpz'ery. 



the tii*st chapter of our eneriretio lieiv's caiver. On his ivturn to Quel>et\ he 
fouiui that De Monts's commission, under which heliatllven acting, was re- 
voked. comi>ellinir him to ivturn to France to obtain fivsh jK>\vers. lii this 
he was unsuccessful ; but lie agiviMi with De Monts to jvei-seveiv in his un- 
dertaking without i\>yal patronage, and in li>10 we tiud him again on the 
St. Lawrence, piwented fn.>m pui*suing his gei^gni phical ivseaivhes by the 
lieive struggles still going on between the two native tril>es, but binding the 
Algv^nquins yet further to his service by the efficient aid he was able to ren- 
der to their cause. 




Qvrrro 



On the rostonition of j^eace in 1011, Champlain. after liaving paid a sei^- 
ond tlying visit to France for supplies, ascended the St. l^uvivnce as far as 
its junction with the Ottawa, and fonndtnl the nuHlern city of Montreal, 
near the hill which had beini named ^font Roj-al by his juvtltvessors. In 
10 1 ;^, leaving both his infant settlements in a tlonrishing condition, he 
starteil, accomj^anied by seveml Fri^nchmen and an Indian esoort, on an ex- 
ploring exjviiition up the Ottawa, having lieaixi rumors that it came frt>m a 
lake connected with the Xorih Sea. 

The early j^art of the voyagt^ up the givat tributary of the St. Lawremv 



f/rnh's of .-Inn-niiin P/srorrry. 115 

was full of (litHculty, owinu- \o Iho number and force of the cataracts and 
rapids impeding navigation ; but. now carr\ iug their i-anoes through the 
woods, now dragging them with ropes through the foanung current, the ex- 
plorers reached the home of a friendly chief, nauied 'ressouant, only to learn 
from him that the information on which they had ai'ted was false. 

Returning to Quebec after this disappointing trip, Cluunplainag'un sailed 
to France in the hope of obtaining fresh recruits for his infant colonies. 
Aided by tlu^ ]Hnverful co-operation of the Prince of Conde, he succetnletl in 
equipping a little fleet of four vessels. These, tilled with enugrants — includ- 
ing four fatliers of the Recollet ordei', the first nussionaries to settle in Can- 
ada — all well provitled with supplies for the ensuing winter, arrived safely 
at the mouth of the St. Lawrence «^arly in May, UU,"), and on the '2M\\ of 
that month wt^ tind the indefatigable explorer pushing im with a few picked 
men to the Lai'him^ rapids, whii'li had been lixeil on as the reutlezvous of 
the Indian tribes, who were again about to push forward against the Iro- 
quois, encamped among the Great Lakes on the west, never yet visited by 
a European. 

Here was an opportunity not to be lost, and Champlain at once olTered to 
aid the Algonquins and Hurons in making the best disposition of their 
forces, if they on their part would allow him to join them. The compact 
was made, and, surrounded by the wild red-skins in their i>icturesque war- 
paint and other martial tra[>pings, the white men marched in a north-westerly 
direction — tirst up the Ottawa, and then, turning due west, past a numb(>r 
of small lagoons — till they came to Liike Xipissing (^X. lat. 4(5^ hV \V. long-. 
80''\ where the natives received them with eager hospitality. 

After a rest of a couple of days, the dusky warriors and their pale-faced 
guests resumed their march, and following the coursi> c^f a stream ni>w known 
as the French river, they came to the present Georgian Bay. forming the east- 
ern side of the great Lake Huron, called by the French traders of more 
modern times the Mer Douce, on account of the remarkable freshness and 
I'learness of its waters. Crossing Georgian Bay in the native canoes near 
the island of Great ^[anitonlin, or the Sacred Lsland. running jiarallel with 
the western half of the northern coast, the invaders landed, and, marching 
northward, were soon joined by a fresh body of Algonquin warriors, with 
whom they passed several days in feasting and dancing, after which the 
combined forces turned their steps southward, reaching Lake St. Clair, 
lying between Lakes Huron and Erie, near the modern city of Detroit, in a 



Ii6 Heroes of A7neriean Discovery. 

few days. Here tliey came in .sight of the tirst Tioqnois fort, a i^rimitive but 
well-built structure, skillfully defended by rows of modern palisades. 

A fierce struggle ensued, in which Champlain was twice wounded, and 
the Iroquois warriors defended their town with such skill and bravery that 
the Canadian Indians were compelled to retreat. In this retreat Champlain 
suffered terribly, having been carried, as was each of the disabled warriors, 
in a small basket, his body being bound into a circular form with strong 
cords to make it lit into the cramped si)ace. Keleased from this unusual 
position on arrival in the friendly Huron country, our hero and his men 
begged to be provided with guides and canoes for the return journey to 
Quebec ; but they were refused, and the white men had to spend tlie whole 
of the winter among the frozen lakes. 

In the spring of 1616, after making themselves well acquainted with the 
resources of the neighborhood in the frequent hunting excui'sions in which 
they took part, the little band of explorers managed to etfect their escape, 
and, accompanied by a few friendly natives, made their way back to Quebec, 
where, for a time, Champlain had to give all his attention to the internal 
affairs of the colonies, now large communities, holding within their hetero- 
geneous elements many a seed of discord. Trip after trip to France for 
supplies resulted in the arrival of many new emigrants, but it was long be- 
fore peace was sufficiently established for any fresh exploring expeditions to 
be undertaken. Moreover, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and 
Cayugas, the five nations forming the great Iroquois confederacy, elated by 
their victory, in spite of the well-organized expedition against them, ad- 
vanced from their quarters on Lakes Erie and Champlain to within a short 
distance of the French outposts, resolving to involve the Algonquins and 
their white allies in one common doom. 

In 1626 a noble, but, as it turned out, mistaken attempt at conciliation, 
made by Champlain, resulted in a terrible tragedy. Some captive Iroquois, 
who were about to be tortured by the Algonquins, were sent back to their 
own people uninjured, accompanied by an Algonquin chief and a French 
man named Magnan, who had instructions to negotiate a peace between the 
rival tribes. This did not, unfortunately, suit the Algonquins, who had 
hoped ^^'ith the aid of the French to exterminate the Iroquois, and they 
therefore sent a message to the latter, warning them that treachery was in- 
tended, and that the Frenchman and his companion were spies. 

Arrived at the Iroquois canq^ tlie two unlucky emissaries found a large 



Heroes of Afuericajt Discovery. 



117 



pot boiling over a fire, and were invited to be seated. The chief was then 
asked if he was hungry, and on his saying yes, a number of armed Iroquois 
rushed upon him, cut slices from his body, and tlirew them into the pot. 
This awful torture was continued till he died in the greatest agony, when 
the Frenchman was put to death with torture, though of a somewhat less 
revolting form. 

Gladly Avould Champlain, convinced of the fatal mistake he had made, 
have taken summary vengeance on the savage warriors, but, alas ! he was 




INDIAN WARRIORS. 



powerless to do so. The few settlements at Ladoussac, Three Rivers, and 
other advanced points on the St. Lawrence, would have presented an easy 
prey to the Iroquois, and there were no forces at Quebec or Montreal fit to 
cope with the thousands who would have swept down upon the whites from 
the Lakes, at the fii'st sign of weakness among them. At this very time, 
too, the English were casting longing eyes at the rich fur-yielding grounds 
of the Canadian backwoods, and would gladly have shared in the cod and 
whale fisheries of the Grulf of St. Lawrence. A Huguenot refugee, named 



ii8 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Kirk, actually obtained a commission from Charles I. to conqner Canada, 
and for that purpose anchored a little squadron at the mouth of the St. Law- 
rence in the summer of 1C2S, sending a summons to Quebec to surrender. 

As a matter of course, Champlaiu, althougli literally driven to bay, with 
the Indians on one side and the English on the other, returned a spirited 
answer of defiance, which, to his surprise, resulted in the withdrawal of his 
enemies, who were totally ignorant of the real state of affairs. A j-ear later, 
however, Kirk returned, this time sailing up the St. Lawrence, and casting 
anchor off Quebec. Resistance was hopeless, and Champlaiu was coiuj^elled 
to surrender his "capital;" but, struck by the noble bearing of his oppo- 
nent, and by the courage with which he had evidently so long been waging 
a hopeless contest with the natives, Kirk granted the most liberal terms to 
the French, who were allowed to remain undisturbed in their homes, which 
were, moreover, now secured to them by English troops from the raids of 
the savages. 

In the autumn of the year of the taking of Quebec, Kirk left that city 
under the charge of his brother Lewis, and returned to England, accompan- 
ied by Champlaiu, who hoped to obtain by dij^lomacy what he had been 
unable to gain by force : and so earnestly did he ]ilead his cause with the 
French ambassador in London, that the affairs of Xew France were brought 
before the then all-powerful Cardinal Eichelieu. 

Convinced of the vast importance to his country of the fur-trade and fish- 
eries of Canada, the French Minister negotiated with the Ejiglish Court for 
the restoration of Canada, Acadia, and Cape Breton, and after much dis- 
cussion they were transferred to the French Crown by the treaty of St. 
Germain de Sage, which put off for more than a century the establishment 
of the British dominion in Canada. 

A year or two before this event, so auspicious to French interests in the 
West, a new association had been formed in France, known as the "Com- 
pany of the Hundred Associates,'' to whom Louis XIII. had given the whole 
of Canada and of Florida — though the latter, as we are aware, was already 
claimed by Spain — together Avitli a monoi")oly of the fnr-trade. The cod and 
whale fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, however, the French monarch 
reserved for himself. 

The joy of the Company of the Hundred Associates, on the restoration of 
the privileges which had so suddenly been siuitched away from them by 
Kirk, may be imagined. They at once elected Champlaiu Governor of Is^ew 



Heroes of American Discovery. 119 

France, and he returned to his old home at Quebec in 1633, taking with him 
a large party of new settlers, including many Jesuits, who were to form the 
nucleus of a college for the education of the youth of Canada, from which 
missionaries were to be sent forth for the conversion of the natives. 

Having patched up something of a peace with the Indians, and founded 
his college, Champlain prepared to continue that part of his work which 
was nearest his heart — the further exploration of the country ; but before 
he could organize an expedition to the West, his career was cut short by 
death. He expired in December, 1635, having sown the seeds of the future 
greatness of Canada, and inaugurated a new era of geographical discovery. 

Champlain was succeeded as Governor of Canada by M. de Montonaguy, 
a man of a very different stamp, who, while displaying great ability and ad- 
dress in his management of the internal affairs of the colony and his dealings 
with the treacherous Iroquois, did little to extend our knowledge of the 
country under his charge. 

To continue our narrative of the progress of discovery in French America, 
we must leave the ruling powers to join two obscure Jesuit missionaries, 
named Breboeuf and Daniel, the advance guard of that heroic band of la- 
borers for the faith of Christ who led the way in every early expedition 
from Canada, and with whose names is associated the origin of every great 
town on the vast inland seas which are now among the proudest possessions 
of England. 

Breboeuf and Daniel, who had both already done good work among the 
natives, left Quebec on their joint mission in 1634, with a jiarty of Huron 
Indians, and after just such another arduous journey through the forest and 
up the Ottawa as that taken by Champlain a few years before, they arrived 
safely on the banks of Georgian Bay. Here they pitched their tents, and in 
a short time they gathered about them a little band of converts to the 
Roman Catholic faith, for whose use a little chapel, built of the trunks of 
trees, was presently erected, which was dedicated to St. Joseph. 

To this little center of civilization in the wilderness flocked many natives 
and Europeans alike, who were eager to lead a new life — the former won 
over by the hopes held out to them for the future, the latter eager to for- 
get the past. First one and then another Christian village arose on the 
hanks of the stream connecting Lakes Huron and Ontario, from which every 
now and then some worn father of the faith would pay a flying visit to 
Quebec, to return with fresh recruits. Such was the origin of St. Louis, St, 



I20 Heroes of Ajuerican Discovery. 

Ignatius, St. Mary's, and many another now nourishing town of Canada, 
which were yet in their infancy when the news of the great work going for- 
ward in the West reached the ears of the Pope liiniself. Struck by the vast 
field thus opened for the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, the Holy 
Father expressed his loving approval of tlie work of his children in the land 
of their exile. The King of P"'rance followed suit ; the enthusiasm spread to 
his nobles, and, eager to win the favor of the heads of their church and of 
their native land, numbers of young French gentlemen of rank joined the 
missionary band, and devoted their wealth to its cause. The result was 
what might have been expected, ^lontreal became the headquarters of the 
Indian church, St. Mary's, lying about half-way l)etween it and Lake Huron, 
the rendezvous of the missionaries from distant points, who met three times 
a year to give an account of their progress. 

Six years after the lirst arrival of Fathers Breboeuf and Daniel on Lake 
Huron, the missionary outposts had extended as far west as Green Bay, on 
the north-west of Lake Michigan ; and though the iron belt of the Five Na- 
tions still kept the French from the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, Bre- 
bceuf was able in 1641, accompanied by Father Joseph Marie Chaumonot, to 
visit the Onguiaharas, a neutral tribe living on a river of the same name, 
now the Niagara. 

The Onguiaharas — who appear to have acted as mediators between the Iro- 
quois and the Hurons and Algonquins, members of the rival tribes meeting 
in peace in their huts — informed Breboeuf that they were themselves at 
deadly war with a tierce nation living on the west, which they called the 
Fire Nation, and described as so reckless of human life, that the French did 
not care to venture among them while so much still remained to be done 
around the Great Lakes. 

Though so near on this occasion to the now world-famous Falls of Niagara, 
Breboeuf does not apj)ear either to have heard of them or to have visited 
them. He collected, however, a good deal of information respecting the 
habits cf the natives, which are embodied in the charming Relations des 
Jesuites. from which the greater part of our early knowledge of the Cana- 
dian Indians is derived. In the same year (1641) of this lirst visit to the 
Niagara River, two missionaries, named Charles Raymbault and Claude 
Pigart, made their way to Lake Nipissing — the most north-westerly point 
reached by Champlain — arriving there just in time to witness a grand native 
ceremony in honor of the dead, which they describe as extremely imposing. 



122 



Heroes of A/)ieriean Discovery. 



Lake Nipissing was on this occasion almost covered with the canoes of 
the warriors, moving solenmly toward that point of the shore where the 
souls of the deinirted were to be feted. Under a long, rough shed, in coffins 
of bark, wrapped in costly furs, lay the decaying bones of those who had 
gone to the other world ; and over them a song, half of triumph, half of re- 
gret, was sung by the warriors, the women accompanying them with a wail- 
ing cry, full of unutterable melancholy. 




INDIAN BURIAL GROrXP. 

When these heathen rites were over, the Jesuit fathers, who, with that 
earnestness and thoroughness wiiicli characterized their whole body, had 
prepared themselves for their mission by the study of the IN ipissing language 
and the IS'ipissing mode of thought, came forward and addressed the assem- 
bled multitudes. They sjwke of the Saviour of the white man and of the 
red, who came back from the grave after laying down His life for all man- 
kind ; and so worked upon the already melting mood of the hardy warriors 
of the West, that they obtained permission to dwell on the shores of Lake 
Nipissing — nay, more, an eager invitation from some Chippeway guests ti> 
visit them in their own liomes beyond Lake Superior. 

The eagerness with which this opening was seized may be imagined. The 
Chippewayans, or Athabascas, one of the four families of the great Finnish 
nation, occupied that great lone land stretching away beyond the north- 



Heroes of American Discovery, 123 

western banks of Hudson Bay, which has even yet not been fully explored. 
In those vast solitudes, though the missionaries knew it not, dwelt many a 
strange tribe, living out its destiny in unconscious simi)licity. There roamed 
the Copper, the Horn Mountain, and the Beaver Indians ; the Strong-bows, 
the Dog-ribs, the Hares, the Red Knives, the Sheep, the Sarsis, the Brush- 
wood, the ^Vagjuler, and the Rocky Mountain Indians, waiting the advent 
of the fur-trader, from whom they were to receive their distinctive ax^pella- 
tions, and to whom they were to yield up the treasures of their deserts and 
of their mountain fastnesses. 

Taking a Jesuit named Isaac Jogues, as his companion, and leaving Pigart 
to continue his work among the Nipissings, Raymbault started for the 
North-west, and, crossing Lake Huron in a native canoe, the voyage occu- 
pying seventeen days, he arrived safely at the mouth of the straits connect- 
ing it with Lake Superior, where two thousand natives were eagerly await- 
ing his arrival. 

The point of land on Lake Superior where the white men first stepj^ed 
ashore ax^pears to have been near the ra^ud known as tlie Sault Ste. Marie, 
at the beginning of the river St. Mary, through wliich the waters of Lake 
Superior flow into Lake Huron ; and it was probably within sight of the 
gray and red sandstone clilfs called the Pictured Rocks, which noAV look 
down ux)on the boundary-line between British America and the United 
States, that Father Raymbault took up> his abode, to begin his ministrations 
among the Chix)pewayans, Unfortunately, however, his health began to 
fail him before he had been at work a year, and, after a farewell visit to the 
Nix>issing converts, he retired vo Quebec to die. 

Jogues, meanwhile, on whom his sujieriors mantle should naturally have 
fallen, was working out a very different mission ; and though the Chij)pe- 
wayans were not forgotten, and we find Ste. Marie again a missionary station 
a few years later, it was the fierce Iroquois avIio were next to receive a 
Christian minister among them. Sent down the St. Lawrence on a message 
connected with Raymbault' s work, the second missionary, a friendly Huron 
chief named Ahasisteri, two young French laymen, and some twenty-six 
Hurons, fell into the hands of a party of Mohawks, who had long been eager 
for a feast of human flesh, and looked upon the whites and their escort as 
lawful x)rey. To quote the quaint Father who sent home an account of the 
matter, if jieace could not be nuide with the Iroquois, no Frenchman would 
be safe from " finding a tomb in the stomachs of these savages." 



XJ3 «, ^,v,x«^y *** v**v. k,wv*x.»*n.«k, vx w^xv.«v. «.. , c.^^v 



124 Heroes of America ji Discovery. 

That Jogiies this time escaped this awful fate was indeed little short of a 
miracle. He was marched with his comx^anions in misfortune through three 
Mohawk villages ; he saw Ahasisteri burned to death, and one of his own 
young Indian converts tomahawked for making the sign of the cross on a 
baby's forehead ; yet, for some reason unexplained, his own life was spared, 
and having managed to get away from his party, he wandered about in the 
woods, carving the name of Christ on the bark of the trees, till he came in 
sight of the Dutch fort at Albany, and was received by its commandant. 
Van Cuyler, having been the first white man to cross the northern half of 
the present state of New York. 

From Albany, Jogues was unable to return direct to Canada, either by 
sea or by land, and he therefore took ship for England, whence, after suf- 
fering many things at the hands of Falmouth wreckers, he managed to get 
back to the land of his adoption. Here he found all the French stations in 
a state of horror-struck excitement, owing to the increasing hostility of the 
Iroquois. A Father Bressain, who had fallen into one of their ambushes, 
had seen his Huron comrades killed and eaten, and had himself been res- 
cued only at the last moment by Dutch traders. Other horroi"s, too terrible 
to be related, had been inflicted on the native converts to Christianity, and 
in 1645 a solemn assembly of all the French authorities was held at Three 
Rivers, with a view to the negotiation of peace with the terrible enemy. 
After mnch private consultation among themselves, and many a picturesque 
palaver with the Indian sachems, who came to the meeting decked out in all 
tUeir finery, the French were cheered by the conclusion of ** eternal peace" 
sith the Five Nations. This peace actually lasted a whole year, and at the 
end of that year seemed so little likel.y to be broken, that Jogues, in spite 
of all his previous sufferings, resolved to venture again to the south of the 
St. Lawrence, and try to win over some of the Iroqiiois to Christianity. 

In June, 1046, we find the heroic Jesuit embarking on the Iroquois, now 
the Eichelieu, escorted by four warriors of that nation and two young Al- 
gonquins, his object being to found a church among the Onondagas. He 
arrived safely at a little village at the head of a snu\ll sheet of water con- 
nected with Lake Champlain, called by the natives Andiatarocte, or the 
Gate of the Lake, to Avliich he gave the name of St. Sacrement. After a 
short cruise on the "Gate." and the presentation of gifts to the Iroquois 
chit>l's and elders who happened to be assembled ou its banks, Jogues re- 
turned to the St. Jjawrence to report progress, and in September of the same 



Heroes of Amcriean Diseovery. 125 

year — this time accompanied by a young Frenchman — he once more visited 
the Iroquois, intending to settle among them and teach them Christianity. 

All went well at tirst, but at the beginning of 1647 Jogues received in- 
structions from his superiors to go to the Mohawk country, with a view to 
insuring peace with its savage warriors, who were showing signs of breaking 
the solemn treaty made at Three Rivers. The Jesuit obeyed, though he is 
reported to have said, " I shall go, but 1 shall never return." He was right. 
He had scarcely set foot among the Mohawks, before he and his fellow- 
countryman were taken prisoners, charged with having blighted the corn 
and caused a famine. Stripped half naked, they were dragged into a 
neighboring village and there jiut to death. Not until long afterward did 
any details of the tragedy reach Quebec. A Mohawk prisoner, taken in a 
struggle with the French on the St. Lawrence, and condemned to death for 
his share in an ambush into which the white men and some of their Algon- 
quin allies had fallen, confessed before his torture began that he had himself 
killed Jogues, and another member of his tiibe the missionary's companion. 

No more vivid picture of the struggle between savagery and civilization 
in the early days of Canada could be conceived, than the account sent home 
by a Jesuit of the young Mohawk's death. This Mohawk had told how he 
and another had invited Jogues to supper, and when he arrived in the half- 
naked state to which he had been reduced, a savage, who had hidden behind 
the door of the tent where supper was jirepared, started out and struck off 
the head of the unsusj)ecting guest. The head was stuck on the palisades 
of the village, as a warning to all other Europeans, and on the following 
day that of the young French layman was placed beside it. 

One would have thought that, after this frank acknowledgment of his 
own share in the murder, no mercy would have been shown to the Mohawk. 
But here the true character of the Jesuits came out. Die he still must, and 
that at the hands of the Algonquins, with all the subtle cruelties in -which 
they were adei:>ts ; but there was no reason for him to die in his sins. The short 
time before the execution was to take place was devoted to converting him 
to Christianity ; and just before lie was given up to the native chief who was 
to preside at his death, he was baptized Isaac, in memory of the man he had 
helped to martyr. Poor Isaac is said to have cried again and again on our 
Saviour in his agony, and to have said, when dying, ""I have to thank An- 
taiok" (so he called the Frenchman who had taken him prisoner) "that I 
am going to heaven ; I am very glad." 



126 Heroes of Aynericaji Discovoy. 

The murder of Jogues was the signal for another Indian war : and for a 
time the French missionaries and hiymen alike were absorbed in the primary 
duty of the defense of their ou'n lives and of those dear to them. Tliroiiu:h 
all the tumult and confusion wliich ensued, however, the geographical stu- 
dent may, by eager searching, trace the continuous opening up of new dis- 
tricts, and on the \^lank mr.p ..iiich was spread out before us when we began 
our narrative, we may dou down the names of many a river and lake almost 
unconsciously discovered by the white men, in the very height of their 
struggle. 

The storm broke first on the villr.ge of St. Joseph, now almost entirely 
Christianized. The able-bodied members of the community were away at 
the chase ; the women and children fell an easy prey to the Mohawk war- 
riors. Father Daniel, the head of the mission, while administering the last 
rites of the church to the dying and the dead, fell at last beneath the 
poisoned arrows of the Iroqtiois, and was finally dispatched by a blow from 
a hatchet. Xext St. Ignatius and then St. Lotiis were overpowered, and in 
the latter our old friend Breboeuf and his companion Sallemand met their 
death, the first after three, the second after seventeen hours of torture. 

From St. Louis, the tide of invasion swept westward to Georgian Bay, 
where the Hurons had made a feeble effort to rally. Again they were 
defeated, and in their despair they sent a message by Father Dreuillette, a 
zealous missionary who had long been at worlv among the north-west tribes, 
to Xew England, with an entreaty for sticcor. But, as we shall presently 
see when we return to the colonies on the coast, the energies of the newly- 
formed federation were all required to meet the necessities of home defense, 
and no help came to the sufferers in the north. Dreuillette worked his way 
back by a new route to the St. Lawrence, that was all. Three years of 
almost constant massacres, in which many a noble death was met, alike by 
native converts and their teachers, were at last succeeded by a lull. The 
Iroquois were sated with bloodshed ; or, as some of the French authorities 
tell us, their hearts had been touched by the teaching of some of their pris- 
oners. In any case, peace was made in 16.'0, and it was scarcely concluded, 
before a missionary was ready to risk his life by making a fresh effort to 
convert the men at whose hands his brethren had already suffered so much. 

A certain Father Le Moyne, who had been the envoy intrusted bj' the 
Iliirons with the ratifications of peace, pitched his tent on the Mohawk 
I\iver, and a little later an Italian priest named Dablon, and a French mis- 



Heroes of Ame7^ica7i Discovery. 12'/ 

sioiiary named Chanmonot, settled at Onondaga, cliief I'illage of tlie tribe of 
the same name dwelling on the banks of the Oswego, a river of the modern 
state of New York floAving into Lake Ontario. Wonderful to relate, they 
not only escaped death, but were received with eager welcome. A chapel 
sprang up as if by magic, and Chaumonot soon found himself in a position 
to visit the Senecas, the most powerful of the Five Nations, who lived far 
away in the west of the present State of New York, on a lake named after 
them, which is connected with Lake Ontario by the rivers Oswego and Sen- 
eca. Here, as at Onondaga, the natives seemed glad to receive the good tidings 
of the Gospel ; but, as they declined to interju-et ''peace on earth" beyond 
the limits of their own tribe, and persecuted their neighbors the Eries with 
reckless cruelty, their missionary soon found himself at issue with them. 

Disputes now arose, and of a little body of fifty Frenchmen who had set- 
tled on the Oswego, thinking the days of the old horrors were over, several 
were murdered. This, of course, aroused the terror and indignation of the 
survivors, who were compelled to make their escape as best they could, re- 
luctantly accompanied by the missionaries. So ended the second attempt 
at converting the Iroquois ; but not all the good seed soavu was lost, and 
now and again, afterward, some fierce warrior of the Five Nations gave 
touching proof that he had not forgot the teaching of the good white men. 

Meanwhile, the work of the missionaries in opening up the districts about 
the Great Lakes was being largely supplemented by energetic fur-traders, 
and in 1656 two young Frenchmen, accompanied by a number of Ottawas, 
appeared at St. Louis, astonishing their countrymen in that now flourishing 
settlement by the accounts they gave of yet other inland seas far away 
in the West, and yet other native tribes, differing in almost every respect, 
alike from the Hurons, Algonquins, and the Iroquois. 

Here was a new field for missionary effort, and Dreuillette, the unsuccess- 
ful messenger to Maine, and Gareau, a Huron missionary, were chosen to 
lead the way in this fresh spiritual campaign. Accompanied by some of the 
Ottawas already mentioned, they were ascending the Ottawa, when they 
were attacked by the Mohawks, and Gareau was killed. Dreuillette, how- 
ever, escaped, and advanced into the present Ontario, making his way 
thence to the banks of the Saguenay, long since discovered by Cartier, 
whence he undertook several short trips to the North-east, of which, how- 
ever, few details have been preserved, though they greatly paved the way 
for the advance of the fur-trade. 



128 Heroes of American Discovery. 

While Dreuillette was laboring in the North, Rene Mesnard, who had been 
one of the missionaries to the Iroquois, excited by the accounts given by 
two fur-traders, who had spent a winter on the banks of Lake Superior, 
started to found a church among the tierce Sioux, or Dacotahs, dwelling in 
those remote districts. He reached the southern shores of Lake Superior in 
the autumn of 1660, and in the spring of the following year began his jour- 
ney toward the modern state of Minnesota, which lies between the south- 
western extremity of the great lake and the Dakota territory. Letters 
describing his progress were occasionally received at Quebec, but they sud- 
denly ceased ; and after much anxiety on his account, rumors were brought 
in by traders that he had become separated from his companions, and lost 
his way in the forests on the south of the Bay of Chagwamegan, and must 
have perished miserabl3\ The event proved that they were right. Mes- 
nard' s body was found in the forest by a native, who long concealed the 
fact, lest he should be accused of the murder of the white man. The cassock 
and breviary of Mesnard having, however, been preserved as amulets by the 
Sioux, led to inquiries being made, and the truth was discovered. 

In 1665, a fresh impulse was given to missionary effort in Canada by the 
transference of the country to a new West Indian Comx^any, under the 
direct patronage of Louis XIV., who, recognizing the importance of the 
rich fur-yielding districts of New France, sent out a regiment to protect the 
traders. True, about this time New Netherland was conquered by the 
English, who thus became very formidable rivals to the French ; but the 
Iroquois still separated the two European nations, and yet a little longer 
the evil day of the loss of Canada was deferred. 

The first hero to go forth under the new government was Father Allouez, 
who, following in the footsteps of Mesnard, arrived on the banks of Lake 
Superior early in September, 1666. Embarking on its waters in a native 
canoe, he reached the village of Chagwamegan, on tlie bay of the same name, 
where members of no less than ten different native races were assembled, 
discussing how best to prevent a threatened war between the Sioux and the 
Chippewas. 

Scarcely pausing to rest after his long journey, Allouez advanced into the 
very midst of the dusky crowd, and, partly by promises of present help 
against the common enemy, partly by his eloquent description of the joys 
of eternity to the true believer, he quickly made many converts. He 
had, as it were, dropped down from the skies, straight from the home of the 



Heroes of American Discovery. 129 

Good Sxnrit. lie was invited to remain ; and accepting the hospitality 
tendered to liini, lie founded the mission of St. Esprit, to which, in an in- 
credibly short space of time, flocked Hiirons and Ottawas, with members of 
distant western tribes Avliose very names had never before been heard of ; 
tlie Potawatomies, or worshipers of the sun, the Illinois, the Sacs, the 
Foxes, and many another race, sinking their differences for a time in their 
common eagerness to share the good tidings of great joy which the white 
man was said to have brought. 

Now, for the first time, were heard whispers of the existence, not very far 
away from St. Esprit, of the great Father of Waters, the Mesipi, which 
flowed on and on forever to the south between vast iirairies, where roamed 
the buffalo and the deer, where forests were almost unknown, and the wind 
swept unchecked over the tall whispering grasses. 

Convinced that, from all he heard, the peoj^le on the Mesipi were ripe for 
the reception of the Gospel, and little dreaming of the identity of this great 
river with that of which the mouth had been discovered by De Soto so many 
years before, Allouez paid a visit to Quebec in 1668 to win recruits to go 
forth into the prairies. As usual, there were plenty of volunteers. Three 
short days after his arrival at the capital he was on his way back to Cliag- 
wamegan, accomj)anied by Louis Nicholas, and followed by Claude Bablon 
and James Marquette, who, as a preliminary step for the work before them, 
founded the mission of St. Mary's on the Falls, between Lakes Superior and 
Huron, close to the spot where the Chippewayans had had their first inter- 
view with a white man a few years previously. 

From St. Marj^'s, which shortly became a rendezvous for young men 
anxious to help in the great movement, small parties went forth among the 
tribes dwelling on Lake Michigan, founding new missions on the site of 
the present Chicago, Milwaukee, etc. ; and in 1669, Marquette, who to the 
zeal of a missionary added that of a geographical explorer, conceived the 
idea of navigating the great river. The Potawatomies assured him that the 
natives who dwelt on the Father of Waters would assuredly slay him, or, if 
he escaped their hands, he would be swallowed up by the monsters which 
haunted the deep places in the river. The French authorities were loth to 
consent to what seemed likely to end in a mere useless loss of life ; but 
Marquette was resolute. He turned the long delay, before he could get 
permission to start, to account by learning something of the Illinois lan- 
guage, and in founding a kind of q\\\ of refuge for the scattered Hurons on 



1^0 Heroes of American Discovery. 

the nortliern shores of Lake Michigan, which long formed a " key to the 
West, and rendezvous to the distant Algonqnins under the protectictn of 
the French." 

In 1670, leaving Allouez and Dablon to continue their explorations in 
Eastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, Marquette at last started for the 
South, accompanied by Joliet, a trader from Quebec, five young Frenchmen 
eager for adventure, and two Algonquin guides. Crossing Green Bay in 
birch-bark canoes, the little band of explorers ascended the Fox river, flow- 
ing into Lake Michigan on the west, for some little distance, and then 
crossed the country to the Wisconsin, on the banks of which they were very 
kindly received by a number of old men belonging to the Kickapoo, Mas- 
coutin, and other tribes. 

Here the guides, afraid to enter the Sioux territories and to face the hor- 
rors of the unknown South, returned to their homes, and the Europeans 
embarked alone upon the Wisconsin, down which they paddled for several 
days, eagerly scanning the prairies on either side for the first traces of the 
wild tribes of whom they had heard. Not a sign of hiiman life was seen, 
however, until they came to the junction of the Wisconsin with the Missis- 
sippi itself. They found the great river without difficulty, and, to quote 
Marquette's oavu words, "they happily entered it with a joy that can not be 
expressed." 

Down the glorious river, between the modern States of Iowa and Illinois, 
the two little canoes now floated, till, about sixty leagues below the mouth 
of the Wisconsin, our heroes noticed the trail of men on the western bank 
of the Mississippi. Determined at once to learn something of the people of 
the newly-discovered districts, Marquette and Joliet hastened to land, and, 
crossing one of the beautiful prairies of Iowa, they soon came to a group of 
three villages, one on the bank of a river, and two on a hill a little distance 
off. The river was the Moingona, now called Des Moines. 

Four old men now advanced from the village on the stream, bearing with 
them the calumet of peace, a tobacco pipe, with a reed stem some two or 
three feet in length, ornamented with many colored feathers. Already 
familiar with this sign of amity, the white men knew they had now nothing 
to fear. The villagers were Illinois, which is the Indian word for "men ;" 
and men they quickly proved themselves to be. Conducted to the wigwam 
of an aged chief, the French explorers were plied with eager questions ; and 
when they told of the breaking of the power of the Iroquois by the " great 



Heroes of A7ner{ca7i Discovery. 



131 



Captain of tlie Frencli," tlie assembled "men" greeted tlie announcement 
with sliouts of joy. Then followed the usual instruction in the broad truths 
of Christianity, and again the "men" rejoiced, doubtless connecting in 
their simple untutored minds the two items of good news. A grand feast 
was held in honor of those who had brought them, and when it was over, 
tlie visitors were escorted to their canoes by the chief and hundreds of his 
followers. 

With a peace-pipe, the parting gift of the Illinois, hung round his neck 
as a charm against future dangers, Marquette continued his course, which 
now led him between the present States of Missouri and Illinois, among the 
weird perpendicular rocks forming so characteristic a feature of this part of 
the country, till he came to the junction of the Mississippi with its mighty 
and turbulent affluent, the Missouri, where the city of St. Louis now stands. 




THE MISSISSIPPI AT ST. LOUIS. 



(1885.) 



Overwhelmed with delight at the beauty of the scene before him, Mar- 
quette could hardly refrain from entering the Missouri then and there, to 
trace it to its source ; but curbing his ardor — to be, as he vainly hoped, in- 
dulged at some future time — he continued his course down the now greatly 
augmented Mississippi, passing its junction with the Wabash or Ohio, and 
the homes of the peaceful Shawanees, till, with Tennessee on one hand and 
Arkansas on the other, he approached the most northerly limit reached by 
De Soto. There could be no doubt now of the identity of the Father of 
Waters with the Miclie Sepe to which the Spanish hero had been led with 



132 



Hc7^ocs of Amei^icaii Discovery. 



the remnant of liis forces by liis Chickasaw guides ; and Marquette felt tliat 

his work was practically done, lie determined, however, to enter the land 

of the Arkansas, and reached the village of the Mitchigamea (N. lat. 33°), 

where, for the lirst time on this wonderful trip, the natives came out against 

him with hostile intentions. Armed with bows and arrows, clubs, etc., the 

Arliansas warriors closed round the little birch-bark canoes in their own 

larger vessels, and it 

seemed for a moment 

as if the fate of the 

intruders was sealed ; 

but, rising up among 

the gesticulating 

crowds, Marque 1 1 e 

held his calumet aloft, 

and, as if by magic, 

the Aveapons sunk, 

and the yells of rage 

were converted into 

shouts of welcome. 

On the following 
quette and his peojDle 
corted, by the very n 
had been so eager for their blood, 
to the village of Arkansea, and 
here, having learned that the 
Father of Waters pursued its 
course in a south-easterly direction to the Gulf of Mexico, our hero resolved 
to turn back. The return voyage up the Mississippi was little more than a 
repetition of the descent, till its junction with the Illinois was reached, when 
the canoes were embarked on the waters of the latter river, and a new land, 
consisting chiefly of extensive and fertile prairies, was entered. The men 
of Eastern Illinois showed themselves true brethren of the members of their 
tribe who had so hospitably received the French on the western side of the 
great river, and the explorers, after resisting all entreaties to take up their 
abode on the Illinois, were escorted in a north-easterly direction to Lake 
Michigan by way of Chicago, and arrived safely on the northern shores of 
Lake Michigan, after an absence of about two years. 




MOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 133 

A little later, Marquette went as a missionary to northern Illinois ; and 
after converting many of the Indians about Chicago to the faith, he started 
for north-eastern Michigan, intending to found a mission there. Having 
set up an altar on the little river bearing his name, he asked his guides to 
leave him alone for a short time, and when they returned to seek him, he 
was found dead. He was buried in the sand near the town called after him, 
and is still revered by the natives and settlers of the Lake districts, many 
of whom are said to invoke the aid of St. Marquette when in danger in their 
frail canoes. 

While Marquette's career was thus cut short before he had even begun the 
realization of his dream of ascending the Missouri, the work he had com- 
menced on the Mississii^pi was carried on by a man of a very different char- 
acter. On his way back to Quebec, from his trip with Marquette, Joliet 
became acquainted with Robert Cavalier de la Salle, Governor of Frontenac, 
now Kingston, a French outpost on Lake Ontario, who had already made 
himself thoroughly acquainted with the immediate neighborhood. Fired 
by what he heard from Joliet, La Salle resolved to obtain i^ermission from 
the King of France to go down the Mississippi, and open a trade in buffalo- 
hides with the Indians of the South. He hastened to France, and returned 
the same year, accompanied by an Italian soldier named Tonti, and ]3ro- 
vided with full powers from his sovereign. 

The adventurers — with Father Hennepin, who accompanied them as mis- 
sionary, and some sixty followers, including boatmen, hunters, and soldiers — 
began their journey, in the autumn of 1678, in a canoe built under La Salle's 
direction at Kingston, which carried them safely down the Niagara river and 
across Lake Erie to Fonawauta Creek, near the Falls at the southern ex- 
tremity of the lake. Here some months were spent in cultivating the friend- 
ship of the Senecas and constructing a little sailing vessel of sixty tons, to 
which the name of the Griffin was given. The Griffin was successfully 
launched on Lake Erie on the 7th August, 1679, and entering the narrow 
strait called Detroit, on which the city of the same name now stands, she 
rapidly carried the expedition into Lake Huron, and thence through the 
Straits of Mackinaw to Lake Michigan, on the north-eastern shores of 
which a little colony was planted. 

Lake Michigan was now traversed, and, landing on the shores of Green 
Bay, La Salle made what turned out to be the fatal mistake of sending the 
Griffin back to Niagara laden with furs, with orders for her captain to re- 



134 Heroes of A^nerican Discovery. 

turn with i)rovisions with as little delay as possible. The Griffin, alas ! 
went clown with all on board before Niagara was reached ; and, ignorant of 
her fate, La Salle, Tonti, Hennepin, and a few followers went down Lake 
Michigan to St. Josei)h, on the south-eastern shores, whence they made 
many interesting excursions into Illinois, discovering Lake Peoria, and win- 
ning many friends, alike among the Illinois and the Miamis of Michigan. 

As time went on, however, and no tidings came of the ill-fated Griffin, 
Avhich had been constructed at the cost of so much time and labor, the 
spirits of the party began to sink — a fact to which the name of Crevecopur, 
given to a fort built near Lake Peoria, bore striking witness. After many 
a consultation as to the best course to pursue, it was resolved that La Salle 
should return to Frontenac to obtain news and sui)plies, and that, during 
his absence, Tonti and Hennepin should remain at Creveca'ur with the 
greater number of the followers. 

Tonti, though deserted by most of his men as soon as their leader's back 
was turned, remained bravely at his post, until he was compelled to tiee to 
Lake Michigan by an incursion of the Iroquois ; while Hennepin, with two 
companions, descended the Illinois to its junction with the Mississippi, 
which he ascended till he reached the beautiful fall in N. lat. 45°, between 
the modern states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and to which he gave the 
name of St. Anthony, after his patron saint. From the Falls, Hennepin 
made several excursions among the Sioux, by whom he was for some little 
time held captive ; but, escaping from their hands unhurt, he returned to 
Green Bay by way of Wisconsin, and thence to Quebec. 

Meanwhile, La Salle, on his arrival at Frontenac, found that he had been 
long supposed to be dead — that his creditors had seized his i)roperty — and 
that his good ship Griffin had never reached Niagara. Cast down, but not 
in despair, at this accumulation of troubles, he succeeded in again collecting 
men and stores and rigging for a new vessel, with which he hastened back 
to Crevecoeur, to find it, as we know, deserted. He ascertained, however, 
that Tonti Avas living among the Potawatamies on Lake Michigan, and having 
erected a new fort some miles south of Crevecoeur, which he called St. Louis, 
he rejoined his old comrade, and easily persuaded him to start on a fresh 
journey of discovery. Together the two heroes returned to the Illinois, and 
rapidly building a second vessel, they sailed in it, in 1682, on a voyage fruit- 
ful of the best results. Launched on the Illinois, the little bark floated 
without accident to its junction ^^\i^\ the Father of Rivers, and thence on 



Heroes of American Discovery. 135 

the broad waters of the parent stream, past the mouth of the Missouri, be- 
tween Tennessee and Arkansas, and again between Arkansas and Mississippi, 
beyond the most southerly point reached by Marquette, past the spot where 
De Soto's body was committed to the deep, until at last the final home of 
the Mississippi and its many tributaries was reached, and Frenchmen stood 
once more on the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Having set up the arms of France in the low alluvial plains overlooking 
the gulf, and named the whole district Louisiana in honor of the French 
monarch. La Salle retraced his steps, and hastening to France with the good 
news of his successful trip, he was shortly placed in command of an import- 
ant expedition for the colonization of newly-discovered districts. 

Full of wild hopes of the great things he was now to achieve, La Salle 
sent a message to his old friend Tonti, begging him to meet him «,t the 
mouth of the Mississippi ; but alas ! the latter appeared alone at the ren- 
dezvous. Accompanied by twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, Tonti 
paddled down the now familiar Mississippi from Fort St. Louis with little 
difficulty, and awaited the coming of his old commander near the site of the 
I^resent New Orleans. Day after day, week after week passed on, and no 
La Salle ax)peared. The four vessels bearing his little company of 280 per- 
sons, including two young relatives of the commander, named Cavalier and 
Moranget, were tossing about in the Gulf of Mexico, unable to make the 
land. La Salle, who believed he could have acted as pilot with the best re- 
sults, was thwarted at every turn by Beaujeu, the admiral of the fleet, who, 
after passing between Florida and Cuba, insisted on maintaining a western 
course till he came to the Bay of Matagorda, in Texas. 

Recognizing no landmarks, La Salle entreated Beaujeu not to disembark 
the forces without some further exploration of the coast ; but he was un- 
heeded. The boats were lowered, and the colonists were put on shore. The 
wrecking of the store-ship was the first disaster to overtake them ; it was 
followed, as a necessary result, by famine and discontent, and in the midst 
of the confusion some Indians surprised the new-comers, and murdered two 
of them. 

In this terrible crisis Beaujeu at last yielded to the sujjerior experience of 
La Salle, who, restored to the command, had a fort constructed out of the 
wreck of the store-sliip, and, leaving 230 persons in it, he started with six- 
teen picked men to try and find the Mississippi. His search was unsuccess- 
ful, and, fearing that the colony would suffer on the low lands by the bay^ 



ij6 Heroes of Anieriean Discovery. 

La Salle returned to the fort and superintended its removal to a hill near 
1 y, to which he gave the name of St, Louis, claiming the whole of the sur- 
rounding country as the property of the King of France. 

'rh(^ fort strengtheniHl by outposts, the colonists cheered by brighter pros- 
pects, La Salle now again ventured to go on a quest for the Mississippi and 
1 he faithful Tonti, only to return four months later in rags. Again and 
again the sann^ thing was repeated. Faraway from the alluvial coast region, 
to the cross-timbers or wooded lands and jtrairies of Eastern Texas, and into 
the mountain distiicts of New Mexico in the West, tenanted by the Nava- 
joes. Apaches, U talis, Conumches, aud other wild predatory tribes, the un- 
successful explorer led his few faithful followers, until at last he was com- 
pelled to give up all hope of finding tlu^ gi'eat rivei- connected with so many 
hopes, lie returned for the last tiuie to Fort St. Louis to Jind it almost in ruins, 
and of the 230 colonists only thirty-six still alive, dissensions among them- 
selves and famine having been the chief causes of this terrible state of things. 

It was evidently useless to renuiin longer on the coast, and La Salle now 
came to the desperate resolution of making his way back to Canada on foot. 
With sixteen companions, he started for the work, supporting himsi^lf and 
his party by hunting the wild animals of the pi-airie ; and but for treachery, 
auiong his followers, he would probably have lived to tell the tale of a jour- 
ney of which every stage was full of the most thrilling adventnre. As it 
w;is, how(nT,r, the wanderers had not proceeded very far before La Salle's 
nephew, Moranget, was mujxlered by tw^o men named Dubaut and l^Arche- 
veque, who had long cherished bitter feelings against the family, in whose 
enterprise they had embarked all their capital. La Salle, coming \\\t soon 
after Moranget's death, and missing him from amoni'; the party, i)ut tlu; 
simple question, "Where is my nephew?" The only reply was a loud re- 
port from the gun of l^ubaut, and La Salle fell dead at his feet. His body 
and Moranget's were stripped, and loft on the prairie to be devoured by 
eagles and wild beasts, while the murderers calmly pursued their way. It 
is with little regret that we add that they w(U'e shortly afterwai'd theiusi^ves 
slain by Indians, and that of the original party, seven only — fourteen long 
years after the starting of the original exi)edition — reached Arkansea, on 
the Mississipi)i, where they were kindly received l)y the Indians, who gave 
tiiem a letter from Tonti to La. Salle, which luul been left with them when 
the former, having given up all hope of the arrival of his friend, had re- 
turned to the lakes of Canada. 



Heroes of Americaji Discovery. 



^11 



While La Salle was vainly struggling to accomplish the end for which he 
had sailed to Louisiana, the French were not idle in the North. In the rich 
peltries of the far West the fur-traders found a source of wealth rivaling 
even the mines of the South, and a class of men — unique alike in their man- 
ners and their experiences — si)rang up, as it were, in the heart of the wilder- 
ness, to whom the name of courturs des hois was given. These rangers of 




ASSASSINATION OF LA SAI.LE. 



the woods seem to have left behind them the European prejudice against 
the natives, and in their wild expeditions in remote tracts, and among dis- 
tant tribes, they adopted the Indian mode of dress, contracted marriages 
with "squaws," and brought up their half-caste children to lead a life dif- 
fering but slightly, if at all, from that of their mothers' relations. The usual 
result followed : the natives copied the vices of their visitors without their 
virtues, and but for the missionaries, who settled wherever there seemed to 
be a hope of winning even a few souls to God, natives and settlers would 
have been involved in one common ruin, alike of body and soul. 

Little by little the traders and missionaries penetrated as far north as 
Hudson's Bay, and as far west as the Saskatchewan, the shores of whicji 



138 Heroes of American Discovery. 

were dotted with trading houses and chapels long before its very name was 
heard in Enroi:)e. Unfortunately, however, neither the seekers after souls 
nor the hunters of peltries were men to talk much of their exploits, and 
though fiction has drawn largely from life in the far West in these early 
days for thrilling situations, little is known of the facts of the first inter- 
course of the white man with the various races of the great western hyper- 
borean group of nations. Not until the powerful rival of the French in the 
West, the Hudson's Bay Company — of the growth of which particulars are 
given elsewhere — had sent forth its heroes on expeditions which were some- 
thing more than trading excursions, did the first volumes appear of that ex- 
tensive and fascinating literature of western travel from which the latter 
part of our narrative will be culled. 

To atone for the reticence of the fur-trader and missionary in the far 
North-west, traveler after traveler succeeded Marquette and La Salle in ex- 
ploring the great lakes of Canada and the shores of the Mississippi. Of 
these, one of the chief was Baron La Hontan, who, starting from Lake 
Michigan, went down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi, and is supposed to 
have very nearly approached the settlements of the Spanish New Mexico. 
In any case, he heard from some Indians, whom he called the Guaczitares — 
a name we altogether fail to recognize as that of any known tribe— of the 
existence of white men in the South ; and, what was perhaps of more im- 
portance, he learned from some visitors to the Guaczitares that they came 
from a country beyond which lay high moutains, only to be crossed with 
great difficulty, but that those who had crossed them had reached a big salt 
lake 800 leagues round, and with a wide opening to the south. From the 
mountains one great river flowed into the lake, and another eastward to the 
Miche Sepe. The big salt lake was probably that part of the sea now known 
as Queen Charlotte's Sound, the river flowing into it the Columbia, and the 
mountain range the Rocky Mountains. 

On his return journey. La Hontan descended a river supposed to have 
been the second alluded to by the Indians, which brought him in five weeks 
to the Mississippi, ascending which he came to the port of Crevecoeur, then 
still under the command of Tonti, so that he may be said in some sense to 
have bridged over the gap between the two expeditions of La Salle. With 
his name must be associated, however, that of Father Charlevoix, the well- 
known historian of New France, who made what may be called the grand 
tour of inland America, passing up the St. Lawrence, through the lakes, 



Heroes of America7i Discovery. 139 

and then down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, meeting with few ad- 
ventures on the way, but collecting vast stores of information respecting 
the manners and customs of the natives, and doing much to shake the nar- 
row view hitherto entertained, alike of the extent and importance of the 
lands on the west of the Mississippi. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EAHLY EXrLOKATIO.NS IN f.VLI I<X)KNIA, NEW MEXICO. AND ARIZONA. 

HAVING traced tluMoii ISO of oMily discovery from the most southerly 
point of Florida, to tlu> moutlis of tlie Mississii)pi on tlie west, and 
up the Atlantic coast to the ()()th parallel of nortli latitude, from the Gulf 
of St. i.awr(>nctM() tluMMMitral table-lands of North America in Minnesota 
and down \\\o Father of \Vat(>rs to the sea, we will conii)lete our survey of 
tlu> work done in tlu> lirsl two centuries after the discoveiy of Columbus by 
turnini;- to the South-W(\st, which from the lirst presented special dilliculties 
I ) the explorers, on account of the rugged nature of its scenery and the per- 
sistent iu)stility of its inhabitants. 

From Mexico wcMit forth the first authenticated exptnlitions for the ex- 
ploration of the districts now foi'ining the south-w(\stern states of North 
Auierica, and to the restless ambition of Cortes may be traced much of the 
hatred of the wdiite man which still distinguishes the Apaches, Pueblos, 
Shoshones, and other aboriginal tribes of New M(^xico, Arizona, and Cali- 
foniia. 

As early as 1530, the conqueror of Mexico, anxious to retrieve his waning 
grt^itness by new discoveries to tlu^ northward, scMit foi-th two brigautines, 
under Diego de llurtado, to exi>lore the coast abov(^ the 2r>th parallel of 
north latitude. These first vessels w(>r(> wivcktMl. and their commander lost; 
but, luUhing daunt(Ml, Cortes at onc(> (Hpiii^ped two others to take their 
place, which put to sea in lAlU, under two caiUains, named Grijalva and 
Mendoza. The former is supposed to have reached the northern portion of 
the (lulf of (California, but the latter was murd(n'(Hl by his pilot, Ximenes, 
who afterward landed on tlu^ coast of California, wlun-e he and many of his 
nuMi where kilhnl by the nativ(>s. The survivors returned to ^lexico with 
wonderful stories of their adventures and the wealth of th«^ districts visittMl, 
which so inllamed the imagination of Cortes, that he soon afterward himself 
started for tht^ North with three well-manned vessels, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



141 



A disastrous result (>nsu<Hl. Two ol" tlu^ ships were wnn-ked, and wlum 
about to prosecutes liis voyages in the tliird, (Jortes was reealh-d to Mexico })y 
a rebellion which liad broken out in his absence. A little later, however, a 
certain Francisco de lllloa, who had been thi'oughout tlu; companion of 
Cortes, spent a year in cruising about the Uuli' ol' Calil'ornia, and discovered 




FEKDINANI) (^JORTIOS. 



it to terminate in N. lat. 82°, in a bay lesembling the Adriatic, to which lu 
gave the name of the Sea of Cortes. 

In 1537, a new impulse was given to the flagging interest of the Spanish 
in the uidvnown districts to the north by the arrival at the Mexican capital 
of our old acquaintance, Alvaro Nunez, fresh from his wonderful experi- 
ences in Florida. His stories of his adventures, and, still more, his repeti- 
tion of the rumors of gold in i)lenty somewhere on the ncn-th of tlu; Gulf of 
Mexico, led to the sending forth in the following year of a monk named Fra 



142 Heroes of Anio'icaji Discovery. 

Marco da Nizza, with orders to lind out " wliat there was in the extensive 
regions beyond Mexico.'' 

Starting from Culiacan, then the most northern Spanish settlement in 
Mexico, Da Nizza, acconii)anied b}' several Spaniards and a few Indian 
guides, made his painful way, lirst through ])]ains already desolated by the 
incursions of his fellow-countrymen, and thence into the territory now 
called Arizona, on the borders of which he was met by some natives of Cali- 
fornia, Avho told him falsely, as it turned out, that their home was on an 
ishmd, and that its shores were washed by waters abounding in pearls. 

Encouraged by this intelligence. Da Nizza passed on till he came to the 
encampment of a tribe of Indians who had never seen a white man, but who 
received him courteously, informing him that forty days' journey to the 
north, on the other side of lofty mountains, there existed a vast plain full 
of cities inhabited by a peo^^le whose wealth far exceeded their own. Pas- 
sing on in search of this new El Dorado, the Father was presently met by 
some Indians from the plain in question, who confirmed all that he had 
already been told, and, iiointing to some gold ornaments he carried with 
him, assured him that their land abounded in similar objects. Cevola, or 
Cibola, was the nearest and largest of their cities. It contained lofty stone 
houses, large places, etc.; in a Avord, it seemed likely to be a second Tenot- 
chitlan ; and, after a consultation with his companions, Da Nizza resolved 
to send one of them, Stefano Dorantes, on in advance, with an escort of 
three hundred Indians, to announce his own approach, hoping thus to en- 
hance the eclat of his own entry with a view to obtaining a larger tribute for 
his employer. 

The first part only of this programme was carried out. As Da Nizza was 
approaching the capital, a few days after his envoy had left him, he was 
met by an Indian, who told him that, on entering the city in all the pomp 
of ringing bells and waving plumes, Dorantes and his escort were seized by 
the people, stripped of all they possessed, and Hung into prison. On their 
attempting to escape, they were shot down by arrows, and but few lived to 
tell the tale. 

Resolved, in spite of the awful fate of Dorantes, not to return to Mexico 
without seeing Cibola, Da Nizza now disguised himself, and, accompanied 
by two attendants as brave as himself, he succeeded in approaching near 
enough to the scene of the massacre to be convinced that there had been no 
exaggeration in the reports of the wealtli of the people of the plain. 



144 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Secretly setting up a little cross as a witness of liis visit, and a sign that the 
country henceforth belonged to Spain, Da Nizza now retraced his steps, 
narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Indians whose comrades had 
formed part of his unlucky escort, but finally arriving safely at Culiacan, 
there to arouse a perfect fever of entluisiasni by his account of all he had 
seen and heard. 

Two years later, a costly expedition to Cibola, consisting of some two 
thousand adventurers, was fitted out by Mendoza,, the Viceroy, who had 
superseded Cortes in the supreme command in Mexico. This expedition 
was divided into two parts, one of which, under Fernando di Alarchon, i)ro- 
ceeded uj) the coast in well equipped vessels, while the other, under A'asquez 
de Coronado, proceeded overland by the same route as that taken by Da 
Nizza. 

Sailing up the Vermilion Sea, or the Sea of Cortes, as the Gulf of Califor- 
nia was then called, Alarchon presently came to the mouth of a large river, 
probably the Colorado, flowing into the head of the gulf in N. lat. 32° 10. 
Entering the river, the Si)anish were soon brought to a stand-still by the ap- 
pearance on its banks of numbers of well-armed natives, who, with threat- 
ening gestui-es, forbade the intruders to advance further into their country. 

Making conciliatory signs, however, Alarchon was able to open a parley, 
and an old man came forth from among the gesticulating crowds, stepped 
into the water, and presented Alarchon with a staff. This, it appeared, 
answered to the calumet of the inland tribes, and, accepting it with an em- 
brace to the donor, Alarchon gave its bearer some rosaries, which were 
eagerly carried ashore, though their spiritual significance is scarcely likely 
to have been apx)reciated. 

A good understanding having been thus established between the natives 
and their guests, the white men were allowed lo pi'oceed up the river. Some 
little distance from its month, the explorers met an Indian who knew >(he 
language of some of the native escort, and by this means intelligible com- 
munications were opened with the people. As their brethren had dont^ in 
the South, th(» S])aniards gave out thtit they were the Children of the Sun. 
sent by the lilV-giving Deity to rule over the natives of Arizona. Asked 
how it was they had so long delayed tlieir coming, and, having come, could 
not speak the language of their subjects, they replied in an evasive yet re- 
assuring manner. In due course a second Indian joined the party, who not 
only knew all about Cibola, but had even heard of Da Nizza' s expedition. 



Heroes of American Discovery, I45 

From him Alarc^lion learned tliat he was but ten days' journey from the 
great city, and lie tried to persuade some of his companions to cross the 
country and communicate with Coronado, who must by this time have been 
within easy reacli. No one could, however, be induced to make the venture, 
and Alarchon — somewhat rashly, as it seems to us — resolved to turn back. 
Sailing down the river, he returned to Mexico, having accomplished next to 
nothing. 

Meanwhile, Coronado had bravely led his trooj^s over the rugged mount- 
ainous districts of the north of Mexico, and in si)ite of much murmuring on 
their i)art on account of the hardshiijs endured by the way, he had brought 
them safely to the i)lain of the Seven Cities. Here, on the very eve of suc- 
cess, he was met by a laig-e force of armed Cibolans, who rejected all his ef- 
forts at conciliation. In the battle which ensued, the Spaniards were finally 
victorious, and the city of Cibola was taken ; but Coronado was danger- 
ously wounded in the assault, and the long hojjed-for i)lunder was nowhere 
to be found. Cibola was but a large village, situated on a lofty and bleak 
jjlain, yielding i)lenty of grass, maize, and pebbles of rock crystal, but no 
gold, silver, or precious stones. 

As soon as he could travel, Coronado, disguising his disai)pointment as 
best he could, took possession of Cibola in the name of his Catholic Majesty 
of Spain, and collected information on all sides as to the nature of the coun- 
try beyond the plain of the cities. Learning that a great town called 
Quivira existed somewhere on the coast, he led his men to a distance of 
about 800 leagues through a level and somewhat barien country, iinally ar- 
riving at the town in question, which turned out to be really large and 
wealthy, though its riches consisted in a fine breed of cattle, not in the 
precious metals and minerals for which the Spaniards had ho})ed. 

Feeling that he had now accomplished something, Coronado then led his 
forces back to Mexico, As usual, very exaggerated reports were circulated 
by his followers as to what they had seen and done ; and though its site has 
never yet ])een ascertained, Quivira was the goal of many a future exfje- 
dition. 

The next hero to attempt to penetrate to the North-west was Juan Rod- 
riguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese mariner, sent out in li)42 by the indefatigable 
Mendoza. After rounding the modem Cape St. Lucas, Cabrillo sailed along 
the coast of California as far as N. hit. -40° 30', where he saw two lofty snow- 
clad mountains, between which projected the now well-known modern head- 



146 Heroes of American Discovery. 

land to which he gave the name of Cape Mendocino, in honor of his (em- 
ployer. Sailing on beyond Cape Mendocino. Cabrillo was compelled, four 
degrees further north, to turn back, on account of the extreme cold. 
He arrived in Mexico in the spring of 1543, after ten months' absence, his 
voyage justly entitling him to be called the discoverer of Northern Califor- 
nia, though that honor is usually claimed for our fellow-countryman. Sir 
Francis Drake, who, thirty-six years later, touched at Point de los Reyes, 
and, in ignorance of his predecessor's work, took possession of the country 
he thought he had discovered in the name of Queen Elizabeth, christening it 
New Albion. 

In 1596, Mendoza's successor, Conde de Monterey, sent an expedition con- 
sisting of three vessels, under Sebastian Viscaino, to California, with a view 
to opening friendly relations with the natives. Crossing the lower portion 
of the Gulf of California, and rounding Cape St. Lucas, as Cabrillo had done 
before him, Viscaino soon came to a good harbor, which he named first St. 
Sebastian and then La Paz. After taking possession of the countrj'- for the 
King of Spain, by firing cannons and hoisting standards, the explorer 
alloAved four Franciscan friars to admit such of the natives as were willing 
to the Holj" Catholic Church, the simple people gazing with wondering ad- 
miration at the unintelligible ceremonies performed on their behalf. This 
double conquest made for the State and Church of his sovereign, Viscaino 
continued his voyage up the north-eastern coast ; but a misunderstanding 
with the natives, and the failure of his provisions, compelled him shortly to 
return to Mexico. In 1602, however, he started again, this time at the head 
of a thoroughly well-organized expedition ; and after a flying visit to the 
converts at La Paz, he sailed leisurely up the coast of California, discovering 
the harbor of San Diego (N. lat. 32° 47') on the 10th November, and the Bay of 
Monterey (N, lat. 36° 33 ), so named after the Viceroy, on the 16th December. 

At Monterey, the expedition received an unfortunate check by the break- 
ing out of scurvy among the crew of the fleet. The terrible symptoms of 
this disease, the cause and cure of which were then alike unknown, so ap- 
palled the Spaniards, that all but a few entreated to be taken back to Mexi- 
co. Their request was granted, one vessel alone, the Cap liana, under Vis- 
caino himself, j)i'osecuting the voyage. A miserable remnant of those who 
had been stricken with the now only too familiar seamen's complaint were 
landed on the ISIexican shores, and when for many montlis no tidings came 
of the Ca2'>itana, it was supposed that she was lost with all on board. Very 



Heroes of Amei'uan Discovery, 147 

different, however, had been her experience from that of her consorts. Vis- 
caino took his vessel far away to the nortli, discovering in N. lat. 42° 51' yet 
another great headland, to which he gave the name of Cape Blanco, and 
some miles beyond it again the mouth of a mighty river, supposed to have 
been the Columbia, and to have been identical with the fabulous Strait of 
Anian, by which, tradition says, the Dutch had penetrated from the north- 
ern to the southern sea. 

Unable, from want of provisions, to penetrate further northward, or to 
ascend the newly-discovered river, the successful explorer now retraced his 
course, arriving at the island of Mazatlan, oft' the north-western coast of 
Mexico, with his men in good health, though much reduced by famine. Re- 
freshed by the hospitality of the friendly people of Mazatlan, Viscaino and 
his men now hastened to report themselves to the Viceroy, and to beg for 
permission to make yet another trip at the leader's own expense. 

Incredible as it may appear, this request was refused ; and though, many 
years afterward, Viscaino was asked to lead another expedition, the delay 
proved fatal, for the gallant explorer died on the eve of setting sail. 

With the death of Viscaino the first chapter of discovery in the south- 
west of North America may be said to liave been closed. The next well- 
authenticated voyage up the western coast M'as that in which a Greek pilot 
named Juan de Fuca took part, and from whom Mr. Lok, an Englishman 
much interested in geographical discovery, obtained an account of his ad- 
ventures many years after they took j^lace. According to De Fuca, he made 
a voyage in 1592 through the long-sought Straits of Anian, situated between 
the 47th and 48th parallels of north latitude, beyond which his vessel en- 
tered the North Sea. That a voyage was made in this direction, though 
not with this result, seems proved by the exact correspondence of Queen 
Charlotte's Sound, between Vancouver Island and the mainland, with De 
Fuca's description of the channel turning, now west, now north-west. For 
the North Sea read the North Pacific, and the experience of many a future 
mariner is anticipated. The naming of the straits dividing the southern 
portion of Vancouver Island from what is now Washington Territory after 
De Fuca is a conclusive expression of the verdict of geographers on the 
matter. 

Another voyage from the South was that of Admiral de Fonte, who is 
thought by some authorities to have penetrated as far north as the 53d de- 
gree, where his vessel was in great danger, owing to the multitude of islands 



14S Heroes of Amcriean Diseoz'ery. 

impediug its pi-ogi-ess. Captain Barnardo, the second in command to Be 
Fonte, carefully explored the winding of this archipelago, while Pe Fonte 
entered a lai'ge river leading into a vast lake also dotted w ith islands, in a 
bay of which he found an English shij> lying at anchor, the lii'st. according 
to the Indians, ever seen in these high latitudes. 

On the latter portion of this story great doubt has been thi-own : but again 
we are almost compelled to accej^t the truth of a visit having been paid to 
the labyrinth of islands, channels, etc., now bearing the names of Graham. 
Moresby, and other modern exploivi-s. fi-om the cori-espondence between 
their appearance and the description of his archipelago given by De Fonte. 

Leaving the work of Behring. Sjxmgberg, Meares. Vancouver, Kotzebue, 
and other successors of De Fuca and De Fonte in the hyperborean i-egions, 
we return to the Spanish in the South, to lind our next hero of discovery in 
an old Jesuit priest named Eusebius Francis Kino, who, in 16ck^. went forth, 
alone from his Mexican monastery to try and win over the wild tribes of the 
Xorth to the faith of which he was a minister. With no weapon but the 
cross, and no food bur such as he was able to beg by the way. the father 
pressed on through the pi"esent province of Sonom till he came to a river 
supposed to have been the Santa Cruz. Following its course, he enteivd 
Arizona, and arrived at the junction of the Santa Cruz with the Gila, which 
in its turn joins the Colorado some miles above its mouth. 

Crossing the Gila, Kino ascendeii its northern bank, and came to a coun- 
try which he characterizes as the most wonderful ever seen by the eye of 
man. Its people, who were ''kind, generous, and hospitable." dwelt in 
well-built villages clustering on the bajiks of sti^eams, and employed their 
time in the manufacture of a kind of cotton cloth and of very beautiful 
feather-work. They were also skillful picture-writei"s. and on the walls of 
their public buildings was pi-eserved a pictorial ivcoixl of their history. 
Mines of gold and silver — which they undei-stood how to work with consid- 
erable skill, though they set but small value on the oiv when excavated — 
promised to yield a splendid i*eturn to the emigrant, while immense Hocks 
of sheep and heixls of cattle constituted another souive of almost inexhaust- 
ible wealth. 

Woi*shiping the sun as the one supi*eme Goii, these simple yet intelligent 
natives kept a tire ever burning on their altai"s in his honor. With its un- 
dying tlame they connected their own prosperity, and they theivfoiv showed 
little readiness to substitute for it any less material guarantee of well-being. 



Hcrois of Avtcrican Discovery. i^q 

F:itlior Kiiu) mado few converts to tho belief in the sjMi'itnal God, whose 
altar is the lieart, and whose chief purifying agent is adversity ; and, pass- 
ing on among the tire-worshipers, he trod his weary way in a nortli- 
westerly direction till he came to tlie so-called Fire Mountain, supposed to 
have been the San Francisco ^[ountain. Here he altered his course for the 
East, and after a long tramp through the forest, he reached the head-waters 
of the Mimbres, the course of which he followed till its waters suddenly 
sunk away in the earth, a phenomenon often since commented upon by 
modern travelers. 

Many months were spent by the missionary in the wild districts on either 
side of the eccentric Mimbres, with little or no result so far as his main 
object was concerned, the native tribes being then, as now, peculiarly averse 
to the reception of religious re::ching. Finding it useless to remain louiivr 
among tlu>m, our hero therefore at last resolved to return to Mexico, and 
there obtain recruits for the further prosecution of missionary work in the 
more hospitable Arizona. After no less than seven years of frtiitless effort, 
he at last accomplished his x)urpose. and toward the end of 1070 we lintlhim 
starting with three other Jesuits ior the Gila, on the banks of which he es- 
tablished a mission for the conversion of the Yaquis in 107*2. Between that 
date and 1070, no less than live missions were founded among these and 
others of the Xew Mexican tribes, the Pueblos, Opotoes, etc., themselves 
aiding in erecting the beautiful buildings, the ruins of which, especially that 
of San Xayier del Bac, in the beautiful Santa Cruz valley, still bear witness 
to the religious zeal and architectural skill of these earlj' teachers in the 
AVest. 

Had the Jesuit Fathers been content with the gradual but sure growth of 
their intlueuce in fair Arizona and New ]\rexico. the conclusion of our story 
might have been diiferent. As it was, however, their eagerness to extend 
their spiritual influence, and — alas, that we should have to say it I— to ap- 
propriate for the use of thtnr order the gold and silver abounding in tlie 
mountains on the north of their new homes, led to the sending out of expedi- 
tions beyond the limits occupied by the tribes friendly to their interests. The 
wrath of the terrible A}iaches, dwelling in the now desolated plains and 
mountain fastnesses on the north-west, was aroused ; and in 1680 they swept 
down upon the Sjviuish settlements in such numbers as to carry all before 
them, compt^lliug the missionaries to tiee for their lives into Mexico. Again 
and a^ain they returned with the same result, until at last the missions 



150 Heroes of Avierican Diseovery. 

were linally abandoned, having wrouglit nothing but evil to those for whose 
benefit they were primarily established. 

After the expulsion of the Jesuits by the Apaches, the districts to the 
north-west of Mexico were for many years left unvisited by any Europeans, 
with the exception of a few venturesome miners, who, working at the risk of 
their lives in the north of the present province of Arizona, won for it its name, 
originally Ariznma, or the silver-bearing country. To atone for this pause 
in inland exploration, however, the coasts of both Upper and Lower Cali- 
fornia became thoroughly well known to Spanish pearl-fishers, who were 
followed, as the French conreurs debois had been in the North, by Roman 
Catholic missionaries, eager to be the first Christian teachers to win the ears 
of the natives. In the course of about half a century, many missions had 
been established in Lower California ; and though, owing to the law forbid- 
ding priests to marry, no permanent root was taken in the country by them, 
and no homes gathered about their chapels, they paved the way for the ad- 
vent of the settler, and exercised a refining influence, alike on the wild 
Spanish fishermen and the fierce and degraded Calif ornian Indians. 

The beginning of the 18th century witnessed the first chapter of the thrill- 
ing drama of the fall of the Jesuits from the lofty position they had held 
throughout the world for two centuries. Expelled from Portugal in 1759, 
and from France in 1764, they flocked to Spain, hoping to find a refuge in 
the first home of their order. They were disappointed. In 1767, the edict 
for their banishment, alike from the mother country and her colonies, was 
issued by Charles III. of Spain, and the Jesuits both at home and abroad 
found themselves involved in one common ruin. 

Rallying as best they could from the blow which dejirived them of all 
their property, and exiled them from the land of their adoption, those 
members of the disgraced order who had settled in Lower California resolved 
to begin a new crusade in the north of the same country. 

Under the leadership of Father Junipero Serra, appointed president of all 
the missions to be established in Upper California, the Fathers went forth to 
set up the cross among the Ahwashtes, Altahmos, Romanans, Kla maths, 
Modoes, Shastas, Eurocs, and others of the almost countless tribes forming 
the two great families of the Central and Northern Californians. 

Dividing into two parties, the first ex])fHliti()ii started for Northern Califor- 
nia by land in 1768. Tlie first division, under Captain Rivera of Moncado, after 
a terrible journey across country, arrived at the site of the present San Diego 



Heroes of Anuriean Discovery. 



151 



(N. lat. 82° 47', W. long. 117° 8') on tliel4tli of May, 1708, and there founded 
the first settlement of white men in Upper California.. Tlie second party, 
under Father Junipero himself, arrived at the new colony on the 1st of July, 
and the first North California n convert was baptized on the 16th of Decem- 
ber of the same year. 

Early in January, 1760, a second detachment of Jesuits started in three 
vessels— the San Carlos, the San Antonio, and the San Jose— to reach San 
Diego by sea. The first arrived on the 1st ^lay, having lost all her crew, 




TlIK GOLDKN GATE, SAN FRANCISCO. 

except two or three officers, from scurvy and famine ; the second put into , 
port at San Diego on the 10th April, with eight men missing ; and the third 
was never again heard of. 

After a. rest of a few weeks, the survivors of the unfortunate fleet, their 
numbers augmented by a party of emigrants from Sonora and an escort of 
Lower Californian Indians, started, under the command of Don Gaspar de 
Portala, who had l)een appointed military governor of the new country, for 
the North, intending to iind the Bay of Monterey, and there found a second 



152 



Heroes of A vi eric an Discovery. 



branch of the mission. The pioneers failed to find Monterey, but on the 
2oth October, 1769, they discovered the now famous harbor of San Francisco, 
justly named the gem of the Paci-ic, its Goklen Gate, the outlet connecting 
it with the ocean, forming the entry to the finest seaport on the western sea- 
board of America. Land-locked as it was, the noble bay had escaped the 
notice of previous explorers, and even now its great importance seems 
scarcely to have been recognized. Naming it San Francisco, after the titu- 
lar saint of the Jesuits, Portola led his party back to San Diego, and for 
six long years the site of the i)resent capital of California was left to the 
undisturbed possession of the natives. 
For sixty years after their first arrival at San Diego the Jesuits carried all 

before them in 
Upper Califor- 
nia, and when 
fefv^._ the overthrow of 
■^5i*- the Spanish do- 
minion in Mex- 
ico — which has 
been character- 
ized as the death- 
blow of the mis- 
sion system — 
took place in 

1822, their settlements along the coast numbered as many as twenty-one. 
As in Lower California, however, the exclusiveness of the missionaries was 
fatal to the growth of permanent settlements : the emigration of Europeans 
to the districts belonging to them was discouraged ; no inland colonies 
were founded ; and, after living for years in an almost patriarchal state, 
more than 18,000 Indians owning no authority but theirs, the Fathers were 
deprived, by act of the Mexican Congress, of their plantations, and for])id- 
den to employ the Indians to work for them. As a result, they were 
compelled, one by one, to abandon the country for which they had done so 
much. During the latter years of their sway, many speculators and trappers 
had, in spite of their opposition, penetrated into their territories, and the 
first seeds had been sown of many a now thriving community ; but, before 
we relate the adventures of those travelers whose exploits entitle them to 
rank among our heroes, we must go back a couple (.-f centuries to trace the 
further course of exploration in the Eastern States. 




CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO. 



(1885.) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PEQUOD WAR, AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN CAROLINA, GEORGIA, 

AND PHILADELPHIA. 

"TTTE left the New England colonies on the eve of the first great Indian 

VV war, which originated in the jealousy of the Pequods— a fierce race 
living between the Narragansetts and Mohegans of New England and the 
Iroquois of the East — at the sudden infiux of foreigners into the fertile dis- 
tricts of Connecticut. Although, strictly speaking, it is scarcely within our 
province, we will give an outline of this terrible struggle, affording, as it 
does, a typical example of the general policy pursued toward each other by 
the natives and settlers in the New World. 

As early as 1634, a Captain Stone had been murdered, with all his crew, 
off Fort Good Hope, a Dutch outpost of Connecticut ; and in the two 
years which followed, aggressions and robberies on the part of the Pequods 
were of frequent occurrence. The crisis was not reached, however, until 
1636, when our old friend. Captain Oldham, fell a victim to the fury of the 
Indians. The details of this second tragedy will never be known, and it is 
more than possible that the outrage may not have been altogether unpro- 
voked, the captain having been a man of hasty temper, disposed to carry 
matters with the natives with a very high hand. 

Oldham was last seen alive starting in a vessel of his own on a trading ex- 
cursion up the Connecticut River, and a little later a fisherman named 
Gallop, at work on Block Island, caught sight of the boat drifting out to 
sea, crowded with Indians, who were evidently at a total loss how to man- 
age their capture. In a moment Galloj), accompanied by one man and two 
boys, started in pursui: ; the vessel was boarded, and, without pausing to 
inquire into the rights of the matter, the four newcomers laid about them 
right and left, till the Indians were driven off, leaving many of their num- 
ber dead or dying on the deck. 

This summary vengeance inflicted, Gallop looked about him for its justi- 



154 Heroes of American Discovery. 

licatioii, and found Oldham and his men lying in their own blood, covered 
with ghastly wounds. The news of their death sjiread like wildlire far and 
near ; and though, to the calm judgment of lookers-on, reconciliation with 
the Pequods still seemed possible to those who were exposed to a fate such 
as that which had overtaken the Puritan captain, nothing short of the ex- 
termination of the whole tribe of the offenders appeared to meet the neces- 
sities of the case. The colonial leaders, however, observed the forms of 
civilized warfare, and, before a blow was struck, formally demanded the 
yielding up of the murderers of Stone and Oldham, with the restitution of 
all proi^erty stolen from the whites. As we know, those who had slain Old- 
ham had most of them shared his fate. Evasive answers were returned as 
to the murderers of Stone and the stolen property, and it appeared evident 
that nothing could be accomplished by negotiation. 

In August, 1636, hostilities commenced by the dispatch to Block Island 
of one hundred men, under the command of John Endicott of Salem, whose 
orders were that he should kill all the Pequod warriors he met with, but 
spare their women and children. A landing was effected on Block Island 
in the midst of a shower of arrows, and a tierce struggle ensued, in which 
only one Englishman was wounded. The Indians were hopelessly defeated, 
and fled into woods and fields of the island, where they were soon overtaken 
by the English, who put them to death without mercy. Not content Avith 
this wholesale slaughter, Endicott also burned two villages of sixty wig- 
wams each, the stacks of maize in the course of being harvested, and all the 
standing corn, so that the unlucky Pequods who had escaped the sword 
would be compelled either to starve or to flee their country. 

The massacre of Block Island over, Endicott repaired to the mainland, 
where dwelt the warriors who had murdered Stone. Halting at the mouth 
of the Pequod River, now the Thames, the English leader sent a message to 
the natives, demanding that Sassacus, their chief, should be sent to him im- 
mediately ; and when no answer was returned, the attack was begun. As 
on Block Island, the natives fell an easy prey to the well-armed white men ; 
and having slain all he found, and burned their villages, Endicott set sail 
for l^oston, where he arrived safely, after an absence of one month only. 

Thanksgivings were held in all the churches, in gratitude for the "signal 
mercy" which had preserved the little band of avengers, of whom two only 
had been left behind, in their terrible work ; but that work had in reality 
only bet^un. The unlinp])y survivors of the " signal mercy," driv(Mi tO bay, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



155 



had joined the Inland members of their tribe, and the tale of the two massa- 
cres at which Endicott had presided roused a deadly enmity against the 
whites throughout the length and breadth of Pequod land ; nay more, even 
the Narragansetts and the Mohegans, who had long since sworn allegiance 
to the English, and were the bitter foes of the Pequods, began to show signs 
of making common cause with the sufferers. Had they done so, the very 
existence of the colonies would have been in peril, and the history of the 
United States of America might never have begun. 

It was our old friend, Eoger 
Williams, who saved from ex- 
termination the brethren who had 
cast him out from among them. 
More familiar than any other em- 
igrant with the ways of the In- 
dian, he read the signs of the 
times truly, and determined, at 
whatever risk to himself, to pre- 
vent the coalition of the Pequods 
with the Mohegans and Narragan- 
setts. To quote his own account 
of the matter — "The Lord helped 
me immediatelj^ to put my lif<' 
into my hand, and, scarce ac- 
quainting my wife, to ship my- 
self, all alone, in a poor canoe, 
and to cut through a stormy wind 
with great seas, every minute in 
hazard of life, to the sachem's 
(the Narragansett chief's) house. 
Three days and nights," he adds, 
" my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambas- 
sadors (come to agree on the terms of alliance against the whites), whose 
hands and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen." , 

At the end of the three days Williams had effected his purpose, and, in- 
stead of an alliance with the Pequods, the Narragansetts had made a new 
treaty with \\\^ English. The Mohegans followed their example, and, their 
forces augmented by many a dusky warrior, the white men of Coniiecticutj 




JOHN ENDICOTT, 



156 Hrrocs of Aiuerican Discovery. 

under Captain .Tc^lm Mason, shortly sallied forth once moreaixainst the com- 
mon foe, their destination this time being the chief stronahold of the Pe- 
quods, a fort near the pi'esent town of Stringbow. on the Pawcatuk River. 
The fort was surprised at night, and though the Indians fought with des 
perate coiu'age, and at one time seemed likely to be victorious, they were 
linally overwhelmed. Their wigwams were then set on lire, and six hundred 
men, women, and children perished in the flames. The morning broke on a 
scene of terrible misery ; yet the cup of Pequod disaster was not yet full. 
As the English, who had again lost but two men, wei"e resting from their 
horrible night's work, six hundred native warriors were seen advancing 
proudly toward the ruins of their homes. 

Arrived within sight of their desolate village, the unhappy Pequods are 
said to have paused for one moment in silent agony, and then, with a yell 
of rage and despair, to have swept down upon the invaders, many of whom 
were slain in the flrst onslaught, though the tinal result to the Pequods was 
but a repetition of previous struggles. All but a little remnant were slain 
without mercy, and, returning red-handed to Saybrook, at the mouth of the 
Connecticut, the victors were joined by a number of recruits from Massa- 
chusetts, whose arrival had been delayed by the excitement caused in the 
parent colony by the ex]>ulsion of Anne Hutchinson for heresy. 

Thus reenforced, the Connecticut settlers hunted the survivors of the orig- 
inal o\vnei*s of the soil down like beasts of prey. Their chief, Sassacus, fled 
in his despair to the ^Mohawks, who betrayed his trust by murdering him, 
and sending his scalp to the English ; and in July, 1087, live months after 
the beginning of the war, the last scene of the long tragedy took place in a 
swamp where stands the modern town of Fairfleld. Three hundred Pequod 
warriors were there surrounded, and while many were slain and some few- 
escaped, two hundred were taken xn-isoners alive. In spite of their eager 
entreaties for death, the unhappy men were sent, some of them to the Ber- 
mudas as slaves, and the remainder dispersed among the Mohegans and 
Narragansetts, to be to them '* hewers of wood and drawers of water." 

While the Pequod war was still in progress, a fresh colony arrived at 
Boston from England, including John Pavenport and Theo]ihilus Eaton, 
men of wealth and social station, whom the Massachusetts autliorities would 
gladly have retained among them. There were, however, now no good 
lands to spare for new-comers near the old settlements, and it was absolutely 
necv\>sarv for them to seek some other home. At the close of the war, 



Heroes of Americaii Discovery. 157 

therefore, Eaton and Davenport led their little band into Connecticnt, 
where a tract of land, t^outh of the settlement ol" ISaybrook, had been already 
pnrehased for them of the native chief for "twelve coats of English cloth, 
twelve alchemy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen knives, 
twelve porringers, and four cases of French knives and scissors." 

Originally called Quinniack, or Quinnepaca, the new settlement shortly 
received the name of New Haven, and grew with a rapidity hitherto un- 
known in colonial annals. From among its wealthy members, one after 
another went forth to found new towns in its neighborhood, until, in a very 
short time, Connecticut was colonized all along the shore and far inland. This 
great movement was further supplemented by the constant arrival of new 
recruits, alike from the mother country and the elder colonies of Massa- 
chusetts, and we soon lind the English pushing their outposts as far south 
as the Hudson, gradually displacing the Dutch, and again driving the 
Indians to desperation. In 1043, the settlements in Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire and Connecticut formed that league, under the title of the 
United Colonies of New England, for mutual protection against the Dutch, 
French and Indians, which may be looked upon as the oj)ening of the first 
chapter of the political history of the United States ; but for the continua- 
tion of that history we must refer our readers to the many volumes on the 
subject already in existence. Our task being to trace the gradual ojiening 
up of new districts, we must leave the infant federation to tight out its bat- 
tles, alike with its European neighbors, the schismatics within its own bor- 
ders, and the true owners of the disputed territories, unwatched by us. We 
return once more to the South, to tind the districts between Virginia and 
Florida occupied under the name of Carolina, so-called in honor of Charles 
IX. of France, by a few non -conformists from England and Virginia, who 
had gathered about the promontory aptly named Cape Fear (N. lat. 33° 48') 
where they hoped to work out their own salvation, free from the temptation 
of the world they had renounced. Their expectations were, as a matter of 
course, disappointed. After the English Restoration, Charles II. re-asserted 
his claim to that part of America long known under the general name of 
South Virginia, and granted the fertile districts between Albemarle Sound 
(N. lat. 35° 59'), and the river St. John (N. lat. 30° 23'), to eight of his favor- 
ite noblemen, the terms of concession making them absolute sovereigns 
within the limits nanu>d. 

The result of this ai-bitrary proceeding was a mighty intiux of emigrants, 



158 Heroes of American Discovery. 

from every part of Great Britain and its dependencies, to the fruitful lands 
which had long been claimed as their exclusive property by the Spaniards. 
The original proprietors were literally crowded out by "gay cavaliers" and 
rapacious planters, who soon made the very name of white man hateful in 
the ears of the unfortunate Indians. Under the governorship of the terrible 
Seth Sothel, a man whose name will live forever as that of the most infa- 
mous of many reckless rulers of Carolina, the natives were hunted down on 
every side, and sold as slaves to West Indian planters, while those among 
the emigrants who retained any reverence for the human or divine had their 
feelings outraged at every turn. 

Not until the 18th century was considerably advanced did the Carolineans 
obtain any relief from this terrible state of things. Petition after petition 
was sent to the mother country by the unhappy sufferers, setting forth how 
the Indians were "assaulted, killed, destroyed, and taken" under the sanc- 
tion of the law ; how even the clergy openly led the most dissolute lives, etc., 
etc. The breaking out of an Indian war in 1715 seems to have been the hi'st 
thing to arouse the home authorities to the dangers threatening their vast 
possessions in the West. The revolt was crushed with an iron hand, the 
survivors of the natives taking refuge in the swamps of Florida, and in 1721, 
George I. consented to take the government of Carolina into his own 
hands. 

A few years later, the lands granted to the eight noblemen by Charles II. 
were bought up by the Crown for some £28,000 ; and from that time the 
colony grew rapidly in prosperity and importance, extending its settlements 
as far south as the Savannah river, across which went forth pioneers into the 
state afterward called Georgia, in honor of the English monarch, long be- 
fore the tirst body of emigrants from the mother country landed on its 
shores. Thus, as New England and Virginia may be said to have been the 
parents of Carolina, the new-born colony became in its turn the founder of 
the infant community of Georgia. It was in 1782 that this, the youngest 
but one of the original thirteen states of the Union, w^as first settled by a 
colony from England, under the leadership of the now famous Oglethorpe, 
who, like John Eliot in the North, made it his chief object to conciliate the 
Indians. 

Soon after the arrival of the emigrants from Europe, Oglethorpe succeeded 
in bringing about a congress between the so-called Creek Indians and the 
English, near the site of the modern Savannah, at which meeting peace was 



Heroes of Ameriean Discovery. 



159 



solemnly made between the dark warriors and tlieir j)ale-faced guests. This 
treaty between the Creek Indians and the whites was succeeded by one witli 
the Cherokees dwelling on the north of the new settlements, and as a policy 
of a similar kind was pursued with regard to religious refugees from other 
English settlements, Georgia shortly became a kind of harbor of refuge for 
all who were suffering in mind, body or estate. Its progress in worldly 
prosperity, though slow, Avas sure ; and, when the treaty of 1763 concluded 
a war of triumph for the English, it had extended its limits far away to the 
South, the West, and the North-west, in spite of many a bloody contest, 
now with the Spanish, and now with the various Indinn tribes in the West. 

AVe have now accounted for the first 
appearance of the white man in all the 
districts of North America bordering 
on the Atlantic seaboard, and are free 
to turn our steps inland, joining, as our 
fii'st hero in this new held, the great 
Quaker, AVilliam Penn. He was the 
founder of the "Keystone State," 
which forms the connecting link be- 
tween the iirst French settlements on 
the Great Lakes and those of the Dutch 
and English in the United States. 

It was in 1681, after a stormy career 
in England, that Penn first turned his 
attention to the New AYorld, and ob- 
tained from the English Crown, in lieu 
of a large sum of money due to him 
from it, a grant of an extensive tract 
of land, encroaching alike on the boun- 
daries of New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. It was included between 
the 40th and 43d degrees of north latitude, and was bounded on the east by 
the Delaware, already connected with so many thrilling memories. 

Determined, with that rigid sense of honesty which characterized his sect, 
to appropriate nothing unfairly, Penn, before he started himself, sent out 
agents to purchase from the Indians the land upon which he proposed set- 
tling ; and all things being thus prepared for his advent, he set sail from 
England, arriving at Newcastle, on the Delaware, in October, 1682. Here 




WILLIAM TENN. 



i6o Heroes of American Discovery. 

he was most enthusiastically received, his fame as a sufferer for righteons- 
ness' sake, and as an eager i)hilanthropist, having preceded him. 

A day of general rejoicing was succeeded by a solemn leave-taking of the 
colonists, and then, embarking on the broad waters of the Delaware, Penn 
made what resembled a royal progress from one station to another, till he 
came, toward the end of November, to the borders of his own dominions. 
His first act on landing in Pennsylvania, as the new districts had already 
been christened, was to hold a solemn meeting with the Indian chiefs, and 
make with them that treaty of peace which was followed by such excellent 
results for his people. Beneath a large elm tree at Shackamaxon, on the 
site of the modern Kensington, the sons of the forest, hitherto accustomed 
to very different treatment from the white man, awaited the approach of 
him whom they looked upon as a messenger from the Great Spirit in awe- 
struck silence. As Penn approached, the oldest sachem rose and bade him 
welcome, adding that the nations of the Delaware were ready to listen to 
his words. 

"We meet,'' replied Penn,. as he stood a little in advance of the chief of 
his colonists, "on the broad pathway of good works and good will ; no ad- 
vantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I 
will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too 
severely ; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendshii) between 
you and me I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains might rust, or 
a falling tree break. We are the same as if one man's body were divided 
into two parts ; we are all one flesh and blood." 

This speech, which has become historical, and is proudly quoted in every 
account of the founding of Philadelphia, appealed direct to the very hearts 
of those to whom it was addressed. Here, at last, was one who owned true 
fellowship with them, who would feel as they felt, who would protect them, 
and, better still, whom they themselves could aid. Again their spokesman 
stood forth, and, in the name of every tribe, from the Schuylkill and the 
Delaware, the Susquehanna and the Juniatta, replied, "We will live in 
love with Father Oiias (the native name given to Penn) and his children, as 
long as moon and sun shall endure." The treaty between the two parties 
was then signed, the Indians adding the emblem of their tribes to the names 
of the white men ; presents were exchanged, and the solemn scene was nt 
an end. We may add, however, that the peace thus cemented was, unlike 
most compacts with the sons of the soil, preserved inviolate as long as the 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



i6i 



Quakers ruled in Pennsylvania, and to it was mainly due the unexampled 
rapidity of the growth of the new settlement. 

Penn' s next care, after his interview with the Indians, was to call to- 
gether the emigrants — the greater number of whom were of his own religious 
persuasion — and present them with their constitution, framed so as to insure 
alike political and religious freedom ; a fact resulting in the flocking to his 




PENN's treaty with the INDIANS. 



settlement of persecuted members of every sect from the New England and 
Virginia colonies. In January, 1683, the foundations were laid, on the west 
bank of the Delaware and at the mouth of the Schuylkill, of that fair town, 
now the second in importance in the Union, called Philadelphia, or the 
"City of Brotherly Love," the streets of which were named after the groves 
of chestnut, pine, and walnut trees through which they ran. 



l62 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



Before the end of its first year, the infant city contained eighty houses, 
and four years after its foundation it numbered 2,000 inhabitants. As the 
years rolled on, and the mineral and agricultural wealth of the western dis- 
tricts of Pennsylvania became more and more fully revealed, town after 
town sprang up within its boundaries. In the beginning of the IStli century, 
we find John Harris founding the beautiful Harrisburg, under a grant from 
Penn, in the midst of the magnificent scenery on the left bank of the Sus- 
quehanna, and though the French and Indian war which broke out in 1754 
checked for a moment, as it were, the laying out of new cities, the now 




THE TEA IN BOSTON IIAUIJOR. 



flourishing town of Pittsburg rose on the site of Fort Duquesne, at the 
junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, as soon as the victory of 
Forbes in 1758 established the poAver of the British. 

In 1774, the quarrels between the mother country and her now mighty 
American colonies — of which the most thrilling incidents were the Stamp 
Act riots of Boston in 1768, and the revolt against the payment of the tea 
dues in the same city in 1773, when the boys of Boston, disguised as Indians, 
flung the cargoes of tea into the sea to prevent the ])ayment of the 
tax — resulted in the War of Independenct', during which, strange to say. 



Heroes of A7nerican Discovery. 



163 



took place those first explorations of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio which 
were to add so greatly to the power of the American Union about to be 
formed. But before we join the pioneers of the new era of discovery in the 
West, we must turn once more to the South, to ])ring our account of the 
work of the French down to the important date we have reached in the his- 
tory of tiieir English rivals in the East. 




INDIAN ORNAMENTS. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF LA SALLE, AXD EARLY COLONIZATION BE- 
TWEEN THE ALLEGHAXIES AND THE MISSISSIPPI. 

THE work begun by La Salle was taken up, after the peace of Ryswick 
(1697) had terminated the war between the French and English, by 
Lemoyne D' Iberville, a Canadian by birth, who, in 1698, sailed for the 
month of the Mississippi from San Domingo, accompanied by his two 
brothers, Sauville and Bienville, two hundred colonists, and a few women 
and children. 

After a successful voyage, our hero cast anchor in the present Mobile Bay 
(N. lat. 30° 40', W. long. 80°), and on the 2d February, 1699, landed his peo- 
ple on Ship Island, where huts were at once erected for the temporary 
shelter of the emigrants. AVhile this work was in progress, D' Iberville ex- 
plored the neighboring Bay of Biloxi and the mouth of the Pensacola River — 
already, as we know, visited more than once by the Spanish — and at the end 
of the month made his way thence, with forty-eight picked followers, to the 
mouth of the Mississippi. 

Entering the muddy waters, encumbered by the floating trunks of rotting 
trees, which formed the outlet of the great Father of Waters, the explorers 
sailed slowly on between the low alluvial banks till they came to a Baya- 
goula village, just below the junction of the Red River with the Mississippi, 
where all doubt as to their having found the mighty stream they sought 
was set at rest by the production of a letter, in their own language, left with 
the Indians by Tonti long years before. 

Now completely satisfied as to his whereabouts, D' Iberville made his way 
back to Ship Island in a south-easterly direction, through the Manshac 
Pass and Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, so named after two French 
ministers accompanying the expedition. Finding the colonists suffering 
from the unheal thiness of their situation, their leader sanctioned their re- 
moval to the Bay of Biloxi, where a fort was at once erected, which was to 



Heroes of American Discovery. 165 

insure to the French the peaceful possession of the vast tracts allotted to 
them by their monarch, extending from the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo del 
Norte, now forming the boundary between Texas and Mexico, to the 85th 
degree of west longitude. 

Having thus laid the foundation of what he hoped would become a great 
French empire in the South, which shoukl gradually extend until it met 
and coalesced with that of the North, D' Iberville returned to France to win 
new recruits for his enterprise, leaving his brothers in charge of the infant 
settlement. 

Thus left for a time to its own resources, the little colony struggled on as 
best it could — the monotony of its life in the barren wastes on which it had 
been set down broken only by an occasional visit from some missionary, 
who would appear suddenly at the mouth of the Mississippi, after a wild 
trip from his distant station, in his birch-bark canoe — until its very exist- 
ence was threatened by the sudden appearance of two well-armed English 
vessels, under the command of Coxe, a physician, who had bought up an 
old jiatent granting the territory occupied by the French to Robert Heath. 

Coxe had come to claim the lands on either side of the Mississippi, and to 
explore his new possessions. Entering the great highway, he sailed up un- 
molested for about fifty miles, when he was met by Bienville, also engaged 
in explorations, who, seeing how powerless he would be to resist the intrud- 
er, solved the difficulty by assuring him that the river was not the Mississip- 
pi, but another stream belonging to the French. 

Suspecting no treacherj^, Coxe turned back, and the spot which witnessed 
this somewhat ignominious retreat is still known as the English Turn. The 
emigrants — most of them Huguenot refugees, who had accompanied the un- 
successful Englishmen — settled in Carolina ; and though they subsequently 
begged to be allowed to join their fellow-countrymen in Louisiana, they 
were refused permission to do so by the French monarch. 

The close of the year witnessed the return of D' Iberville with sixty emi- 
grants from Canada, w^hom he settled at a spot about fifty miles from the 
mouth of the Mississii)pi. While engaged in erecting a fort for the pro- 
tection of the new colony, he was visited by our old friend Tonti, the com- 
panion of La Salle's early explorations, and in company Avith him he as- 
cended the river as far as the Natchez country, where a third settlement, 
first called Rosalie, and afterward Natchez, was founded. 

A little later, the knowledge of this j)art of the country was further ex- 



1 66 Heroes of American Discovery. 

tended by a trix^ made by Bienville across the Red River, an important trib- 
utary of the Mississippi, to Natchitoches ; and about the same time Le 
Scpiir, another adventurous Frenchman, ascended the great river as far as 
the Falls of St. Anthony, penetrating into the prairies of ^Missouri, and 
spending a whole winter among the Iowa Indians. 

Unfortunately, these isolated efforts were not seconded by any well- 
organized attempts to trace the courses of the affluents of the Mississij'tpi, or 
to gain information respecting the habits of the natives ; and the vast tracts 
on either side of the Father of Waters remained pathless wastes to the 
European throughout the reign of the French in the Southern States. That 
reign, however, was not of very long duration. Yellow fever and other ter- 
rible complaints, which still have their haunt in the low lands on the north- 
ern shores of the Gulf of IMexico, soon began to work havoc among the set- 
tlers at Mobile and the outlying homesteads ; and in 1703, only one hundred 
and tifty of the many emigrants who had settled from time to time in Louis- 
iana survived. In 1710, a fresh inquilse, and that of an extraordinary kind, 
was given to emigration to the most southerly districts owned by France, by 
that gigantic commercial bubble known as the *■' Mississijipi Scheme," 
which, projected by John Law, Comptroller-General of the finances of 
France in the minoritj' of Louis XV., will long be remembered as having 
brought about the ruin of thousands. The company to which the working 
out of Law's scheme was intrusted was called the Company of the AVest, 
and owned the exclusive privilege of trading to the Mississipi)i, farming the 
taxes and coining the money of the states to be formed. Thousands of 
whites and hundreds of negroes to serve as their slaves, were introduced to 
Louisiana under the auspices of the new com^iany ; Bienville was appointed 
governor in the room of his brother I>' Iberville, who had fallen a victim to 
yellow fever ; a site was chosen for the capital of the empire, which was to 
rise from the graves of so many Europeans, and the foundation stones were 
laid of the modern city of New Orleans, so called in honor of the then Re- 
gent of France. 

Only one short year after this imposing beginning, the Mississippi bubble 
burst ; John Law became a bankrupt and an outcast ; \\\(^ lands on the Mis- 
sissippi, assigned at enormous cost to those whom he had duped, remained 
unoccupied, and emigrati(Mi suddenly C(\ised. The seeds already sown bore 
good fruit, however, in the gradual extension of the French outposts north- 
ward. The aettlers w]io had come oiit to make their fortunes remained to 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



167 



struggle for bare existence, and the middle of the 18th century found the 
northern half of Louisiana under the care of Jesuit missionaries, while the 
seaboard districts were watched over by Capuchin friars. The presence of 
these zealous teachers of Christianity could not, however, prevent many a 
terrible struggle with the natives, who again and again made a futile effort 
to rid themselves of the intruders, the justice of whose appropriation of 
their lands they naturally failed to see. 
Into the terrible details of Indian massacres and French retaliations we 



.^^-^ ^,^^=^j 




NEW ORLEANS. 



need not enter here ; suffice it to say, that when, in 1754, an English grant 
of lands to the Ohio Company brought on the French war, the soil of the 
^Iississii)j)i valley had already received that baptism of native blood which 
seems to have been everywhere a preliminary sowing for the harvests of the 
white man. The struggle which gave to Great Britain the vast hyjierborean 
regions of America, and to wliicli we shall have presently to refer again, also 
shook the power of France in tlie South, aucl resulted, first, in the (^egsjon, 



i68 



Heroes of Ajncrican Discovery. 



in 1763, of the lands on the east of the Mississippi to England, while Spain 
acquired those in the West ; and, in 1804, in the purchase by the Americnn 
Government of the whole region between the Mississippi and the Rocky 
Mountains, a transaction doubling the area of the United States, and ush- 
ering in a new era of discovery. Before we accompany the heroes deputed 
to explore scientifically the newly-acquired districts, however, we must 

complete our story of the colonization 
of the so-called middle states b}^ join- 
ing Daniel Boone, to whom is due \\\q 
honor of having been the first to settle 
beyond the Alleghany Mountains, 
which had long formed the western 
limit alike of colonization and travel. 
Boone, w^hose early life was passed 
in North Carolina, was first led to turn 
his attention to the "Far West," as 
Kentucky and Tennessee were called 
in the early days of which we are 
writing, by the glowing accounts given 
of the exuberant soil and vast quanti- 
ty of game met with on either side of 
the Kentucky River by a hunter named 
John Finley. In 1767, Finley j^ene- 
trated almost into the rich cane-brakes 
of Kentucky ; and two years later, he 
and five other men of a- similar stamp 
persuaded Boone to be their leader in 
an exploring expedition to the newly-discovered hunting-grounds. 

On the 9tli June, 1760, the little band started on their arduous trip from 
Boone's house on the Yadkin, and made their way on foot up a rugged 
mountain of the Alleghany rauge, the summit of whicli Avas reached as the 
sun was setting. Before them lay the fertile valley of Kentucky, with its 
rolling plains, tenanted by the buffalo, the deer, and other game, alternating 
with rugged hills, while beyond stretched vast forests haunted by tlie wild 
red men, members of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Shawanol tribes, who 
were as yet untamed by intercourse with the white man. 
After a couple of months of successful hunting, the party divided for the 




Heroes of American Discovery 



i6g 



more thorough exploration of the country. Boone and a man named Stew- 
art, whose fortunes alone concern us now, reached the Red River north of 
the Kentucky, where, as they were preparing for the night, they were sur- 
prised by a party of Indians, who made them prisoners, and treated them, 
some say with reckless cruelty, others with rude hospitality. In any case, 
they were not very securely guarded, for, on the seventh night after their 
capture, they managed to get away, and while wandering about in the 
woods, they were met by Boone's brother, who had followed his track, and 
another adventurer from North Carolina, who had followed the track of the 
pioneers through the wilderness. 

Cheered by good news from home, and by the companionship of the new- 
comers, Boone resumed his explorations 
with fresh courage ; but a little later he and 
Stewart again fell into the hands of Indians. 
This time Stewart was scalped, though 
Boone escaped and rejoined his brother, 
with whom, and the third white man, he 
decided to spend the winter in the wilder- 
ness, and collect furs with which to trade 
in the spring. The third white man, whose 
name does not transjDire, shortly afterward 
got separated from his companions, and was 
never again seen alive. A skeleton and 
some pieces of clothing, found long years 
afterward near a swamp, are supposed to 
have been his, but no details of his fate 
were ever discovered. 

In spite of this second tragedy, the brothers carried out their plan. Build- 
ing a comfortable log hut to shelter them at night, they spent the days in 
hunting game, and when the spring of the ensuing year approached, they 
had collected a vast stock of the skins of wild beasts which had fallen be- 
neath their unerring aim. It was now decided that the elder brother. Squire 
Boone, should return to North Carolina for supplies, while Daniel remained 
alone in his primitive habitation to protect the peltry and add to the stock. 
For three months Daniel wandered about alone, making a tour of observa- 
tion to the South, and ex})loiiiig the country on either side of the Silt and 
Green Rivers. On the 27th July, Squire Boone returned and the brothers 




BACKWOODSMEN. 



170 Heroes of American Discovery. 

together made their way to tlie important Cumberland Eiver, a tributary of 
the Ohio, where they found traveling difficult on account of the number of 
so-called sink-holes, the depressions resulting from the sinking of the earth 
after heavy rains in a limestone country. 

In March, 1771, we lind the energetic explorers again on the Kentucky 
River, where they resolved to form a settlement, and whence they started 
in the ensuing month for the Yadkin of North Carolina to l)ring out their 
families. Two years elapsed before the necessary arrangements could be 
made, and meanwhile rumors reached the Eastern States of explorations 
made by other parties, who, without any preconcerted plans, were simul- 
taneously wandering about on the banks of the Cumberland and Tennessee 
Rivers. In June, 17C9, but one month after the lirst entry into Kentucky 
of Boone, some twenty men, from North Carolina and West Virginia, made 
their way over the AUeghanies, and through the Cumberland mountain pass 
to the river of the same name, into the south-west of Kentucky, the whole 
of which they thoroughly scoured, returning home in April, 1770, laden with 
the results of their hunting excursions. 

In the same year, 1769, a second company of hunters built a boat and two 
trapping canoes, and in them paddled down the Cumberland River to the 
Ohio, and again down the Ohio to the Mississippi, embarking on which they 
made their way to Natchez, where they sold their furs to great advantage. 
This was of more importance to them than the fact that this trip of theirs 
connected the work of the English from the East with that of the French 
from the South, which alone entitles them to a place in our narrative. 

In 1771, the Cumberland was again navigated, this time from the north, 
by Casper ^fausso and some half a dozen companions, who penetrated into 
the so-called barrens of the south of Kentucky, where tlie}^ met other hunt- 
ers from the East. Thus, by the time of Boone's return in 1773, Kentucky, 
though still unsettled by any white man, was no longer the unknown dis- 
trict it had been on his first visit, and he appeared to have many rivals in 
the field. 

The little caravan of settlers which included Boone's own family and 
that of five others, started on its arduous journey across the AUeghanies in 
September, 1773,, and in the now well-known Powell's Valley its numbers 
were augmented by forty well-armed men, who had determined to throw in 
their lot with the emigrants. TIk^ transit of Powell's Gap or Pass was 
succeeded by that of Wallen's IJidge, and the augmented party were enter- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 171 

ing the last of the triple range of mountains by the way of Cumberland Gap, 
when they were suddenly attacked by Indians. Six white men, including 
Boone's eldest son James, were killed, and the cattle were dispersed, before 
the Indians were driven back. This tragedy so disheartened the emigrants 
that they declined to go further ; and though Boone, in spite of his intense 
grief at the loss of his boy, would have persevered, he was obliged to yield 
to the numbers against him. 

Back again then the survivors tramped, and took refuge at an outpost in 
the south-west of Virginia, where Boone remained, eating his heart out in 
compulsory inaction, until June, 1774, when, to his intense delight, he re- 
ceived an appointment as agent to a North Carolina company for purchasing 
lands in Kentucky. At the head of a party of surveyors, Boone joyfully 
started once more for the land which he looked upon as his OAvn, and after 
a long journey, of w^hich unfortunately, no details have been preserved, he 
stood again upon the shores of the Kentucky River, which he thoroughly 
surveyed with the help of his comrades, returning in safety in the ensuing 
year to his family in southern Virginia. 

The reports given by Boone and others of the fertile lands in Kentucky 
resulted in the formation of a company, at the head of which was a man 
named Richard Henderson, for the purchase from the Cherokee Indians of 
a vast tract of land in Oliio and Kentucky, the natives having, by various 
hostile demonstrations, given proof of their intention not to permit the quiet 
appropriation of their soil. Daniel Boone, as having already had some in- 
tercourse, though not of the most encouraging kind, Avith the Cherokees, 
was chosen as the agent in the negotiation, and, after much sj^eechifying, he 
obtained a hundred square miles of territory on the Kentucky and Ohio, 
an old warrior closing the final bargain with the words, "Brother, we give 
you fine land, but you will have trouble in settling it." 

The shrewd sachem was right, for Virginia refused to recognize the pur- 
chase from the Indians as valid, and claimed all the lands between its 
western boundaries and the Mississippi for its own. Not until after along 
and weary period of litigation was Boone able to realize the wish of his 
heart, and lay the foundations of the first settlement in Kentucky. His 
company had to be content, after all, with a very limited district to colo- 
nize ; and after he had built his first fort, to which the name of Boones- 
borough was given in his honor, on the south side of the Kentucky River, 
he was greatly harassed by the treacherous attacks of the Cherokees, who, 



1^2 Heroes of American Discovery. 

although they had received the value of two thousand pounds sterling in 
goods for their hinds, lost no opportunity of annoying the white intruders. 

In spite of all these difficulties, Boonesborough was ready in 1774 for the 
reception of Mrs. Boone and lier children, and in the ensuing year the infant 
settlement was reenforced by the arrival of three other families. The sum- 
mer of 1775 also witnessed the establishment of many other stations, in- 
cluding that of Louisville, on the Ohio, which soon became a kind of 
rendezvous for hunters, and a harbor of refuge for emigrants seeking a suit- 
able site for the building of their new homes in the wilderness. Gradually 
the forests of oak, maple, walnut, etc., of Ohio, the now well-cultivated ag- 
ricultural districts of Kentucky, and the less fertile cretaceous regions of 
Tennessee, became dotted with the homes of settlers, each of which in time 
s.Mit forth new pioneers yet further to the westward. 

The conclusion of the war between Great Britain and lier mighty colonies 
in 1788. which gave to English America a political constitution of its own, 
was succeeded by a tide of emigration across the Alleghanies, and all the 
best districts for settlement in Tennessee and Kentucky were rapidly tilled. 
In 1788, the Ohio Company, from Xew England, formed a settlement of con- 
siderable size on the north-west of the river from which it took its name, 
and after a long, desultory struggle with the Wyandots, Delawares, Potta- 
watomies, Kickapoos, Piankashaws, Miamis, and other tribes occupying 
the surrounding districts, obtained a legal claim to their lands in 1795 by 
their x^^ii'^'hase from the natives by the United States Government. 
The peaceable possession of these rich territories thus secured, they were 
soon portioned out into townshij^s ; city after city rose in the wilderness ; 
and, to quote from a traveler who crossed the Alleghanies at the period of 
which we are writing, " Old America seemed to be breaking up and moving 
westward." Every state sent forth its bands of emigrants, and no traveler 
on the now well-worn tracts across the formidable mountain ridge, dividing 
the old homes from the new, could advance far without coming upon family 
groups pausing for the return of some father or brother who ha-i seen his 
tlear ones part of the way. 

By the close of the 18th century, Ohio was also completely tilled ui> by 
the settlements of the white men, while th^ natives, who had sold their 
birthright, slowly retreated before them into the present states of Illinois 
and Indian;!. But yt^t again the same programme was gone through. The 
wliites, to wlioui so much room had already been given, clamored for morej 



Heroes of Avierieaii Diseovery. 173 

again their Government listened to tlieir demands. The level lands, watered 
by slnggish streams, between the Ohio and the AVabash, were bonght as 
those of Ohio had been, and received, as if in irony of the unhieky Indians 
Avho had taken refuge there, the name of Indiana. In a similar manner was 
formed the State of Illinois, the Sack, Fox, and other more northerly tribes 
ceding their territories as readily as their southern neighbors had done. 

Now and then some x^i^w^^'r penetrated into the southern districts of 
Michigan, where, as we know, the French had long since established out- 
posts, and in which were now situated Detroit and ^lahimillimac, the two 
chief seats of the Canadian fur-trade. In 1803, the purchase by the Ameri- 
cans of live millions of acres between Lakes Michigan and Huron brought 
the emigrants from the States face to face with those from Canada. There 
were no more unoccupied districts to be bought in the neighborhood of the 
Great Lakes ; and it will be in comjiany with the scientific exi)lorers of 
modern times that we shall renew our acquaintance with the border lands 
between the American Republic and Canada. 

Eeturning in the wake of emigration to the South, we find the cession of 
French territoi-y to the Americans in 17G3 resulting in the influx, into tlie 
districts between Georgia and the Mississi2:)X)i, of a vast number of adven- 
turers from tlie old states and the new. The general name of Louisiana, 
given by the lirst comers to the whole of the valley of the Mississijipi, be- 
came restricted to the small state between the Father of Waters and the then 
Si)anisli Texas, while the new and important American settlements on the 
east of the great river were called ISIississippi in its honor. A little later, 
the tract between the new state of Mississii^pi and Georgia was settled 
under the title of Alabama, and of all the eastern districts between the St. 
Lawrence and the sea there remained but Florida — still, in spite of a tem- 
porary change of ownership between 1763 and 1801, in the hands of the 
Spanish — to be acquired by the ambitious American Government. That its 
possession was eagerly coveted will be readily understood, and after a long 
series of negotiations, combined with the occasional use of force, it was an- 
nexed to the great republic in 1821. 

As a matter of course, the Mississipxu was not long alloAved to present 
any barrier either to emigration or exx)loration, and the taking possession 
of the districts on the east was but a x)reliminary step toward the acqidsi- 
tion of the vast tracts stretching away to the Pacitic on the west. 

After a long and somewhat stormy series of negotiations, Texas, lirst vis- 



174 Heroes of Avierican Discovery. 

ited by La Salle in liis vain quest for the mouth of the Mississippi, and 
afterward colonized by the Spanish from Mexico, was ceded to the all-pow- 
erful American republic, and, being rapidly settled by enterprising emigrants 
from the East, it soon in its turn formed the starting-point for new expedi- 
tions westward. First California, and then Arizona and Xew Mexico, be- 
came the j)roperty of the United States, while the intervening districts be- 
tween the first state on the Pacific seaboard to become the property of the 
American republic and the Mississippi were gradually tilled up by an ever- 
increasing tide of emigration from the East and from the South, from the 
North and from the West. Step by step, little by little, the red men re- 
ceded l^efore the march of tlie whites, making every now and then a deeply 
l^athetic, but ever futile attemp)t to stem the advance of their insidious de- 
stroyers. AVhat was originally a vast population of some millions of ab- 
origines — ranking among them, to quote the words of their great historian, 
Hubert Howe Bancroft, "every phase of primitive humanity, from the rep- 
tile-eating cave-dweller of the Great Basin to the Aztec and Maya -Quiche 
civilization of the southern table-land . . . vanished at the touch of 
European civilization, and their unwritten history, leaching back for thou- 
sands of ages, ended. . . . Their strange destinies fulfilled, in an in- 
stant they disappeared, and all we have of them besides their material relics 
is the glance caught in their hasty flight, which gives us a few customs and 
traditions, and a little mythological history.'' 

Simultaneously with the advance of the Americans westward, the districts 
now collectively known as British America were being rapidly opened up 
by enterprising explorers of various nationalities ; but, to avoid any further 
break in the continuity of our narrative, we will reserve our account of the 
Hudson's Bay and other companies who took part in the great work in the 
North for a future chapter. AVe will follow first the fortunes of the earliest 
heroes sent forth by the United States Government to survey the regions 
west of the Mississippi, which, when purchased, were as little known as the 
heart of Africa before the journeys of Livingstone, Butler, Speke, Grant, 
Baker, Stanley, and others. 




THE UPPER MISSOURI, 



CHAPTER X. 



PIKE S VOYAGE UP THE MISSISSIPPI, AND DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF 
THE ARKANSAS ; THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCES OF THE MISSOURI 
BY LEWIS AND CLARKE, AND THEIR VOYAGE DOWN THE COLUMBIA TO 
THE PACIFIC. 

THUS far onr heroes have, with few exceptions, been pioneers rather of 
Christianity, emigTation or commerce, than of discovery properly so 
called. Early colonization in America was not, as in Africa, preceded by 
scientific exploration. We have no trans- Atlantic Park or Brnce, no Lander 
Ondney, or Clapperton ; the white martyrs who baptized the soil of the New 
World with their blood fell, not in the canse of geogra2')hy, bnt in that of 
their homes or their religion. ^Only in the extreme North have we any 
romance in American travel which can at all compare with that so insepara- 
bly connected with the winning of each of the secrets of that sister continent 
so aptly named the Dark. 



176 Heroes of Afnerican Discovery. 

The great lakes, rivers, and mountains of America, which we will in our 
turn call the "Fair Continent," were rather found than discovered. The 
emigrant, seeking water for his cattle, or timber for his log hut and his fire, 
pitched his tent by some vast inland sea or rushing stream, unconscious that 
he had done more than choose well for his immediate temx)oral needs. Other 
log huts rose beside his own ; the neighboring lake or river or forest received 
the name of the first person who turned its resources to account, or retained 
a corrupted form of its original Indian denomination. Peculiarities in the 
manners, customs, or appearance of the natives, which would have been full 
of significance to men such as Park or Bruce, Livingstone or Stanley, passed 
unnoticed by the lonely squatter of the woods, and whole cliapters of dis- 
covery were left unwritten by the unconscious agents in the opening u]p of 
new tracks. 

Not until the beginning of the present century can we be said to have 
possessed a literature of inland North American discovery, and our narra- 
tive has hitherto been culled little by little from piles of volumes dealing 
with other subjects than ours, and referring en loassant only to geographi- 
cal problems. The young states forming the infant republic had too much 
to do in welding into one whole the varied and often incongruous elements of 
which they were themselves composed, to be able to pay mucli attention to 
the enterprising spirits who went forth from among them to found new 
homos in the wilderness. But when the turbulent infancy was over, and 
what we may call the young manhood of America began under the enlight- 
ened guidance of the great Washington, first President of the United States, 
a new era of discovery was ushered in. The republic, no longer content 
with its ignorance of the course of its rivers, the height of its mountains, 
and the resources of its vast tracts of prairie and forest lands, began the or- 
ganization of exploring expeditions. The first of these was that sent out, 
under Major Pike, in I8O0, with instructions " to explore the Upper Missis- 
sii)pi, to inquire, into the nature and extent of the fur-trade, with the resi- 
dence and population of the several Indian nations, and to make every effort 
to conciliate their friendship." 

Pike embarked on the Mississippi at Fort Louis, a little below the mouth 
of the Missouri, on the 9th August, 1805, in a keel-boat about seventy feet 
long, accompanied by an escort of twenty soldiers, and after successfully 
navigating the somewhat difficult current, then much impeded by sand-bars, 
he reached the mouth of the Missouri in safety. Above its junction with 



Heroes of Amej'-ican Discovery. 



177 



its chief affluent, the name of whicli si|2:nifies the Mud River, the course of 
the Father of Waters is comparatively smooth, and no incident of import- 
ance occurred till, on the 6th September, the mouth of the Wisconsin was 
reached, where the arduous portion of the young officer's work began. 

Having obtained guides at the Indian village of Prairie des Chiens, then 
an important outpost of the French fur-trade, Pike continued the ascent of 




SIOUX VILLAGE. 

the great river till he came to the mouth of the Iowa. Here he was met by 
a party of Sioux or Dacotah Indians, whose chief gave him a hearty wel- 
come, assuring him that the redskins had tried to keep themselves sober in 
his honor. In this, says Pike, they had not been very successful, and in 
their unsteady gait and wild salute of three lounds of ball fired at random, 



178 Heroes of Avicriean Discovery. 

to the great risk of their guests, the young leader noted some of the first 
symptoms of the fatal effect of the inlluenee of the whites on the once sim- 
ple and manly natives. At a dinner of a semi-civilized description, the 
Sioux chief gave Pike the pipe of peace, telling him that it would insure 
his friendly reception among the "'upper bands" of his tribes, and begging 
him to try and bring about peace between his people and the Minnesota In- 
dians of the East. 

Thanking his host for the pipe of peace, the power of which had already 
been proved by his French predecessors on the Mississippi, and promising 
to do his best with the Minnesota s. Pike pursued his way, between hilly 
country and prairies dotted w ith the encampments of the Sioux, till he came 
to the mouth of the majestic Chippeway on the east, succeeded, a few miles 
further up, by the yet more beautiful Minnesota, or St. Peters River, on 
the west. 

The exx>lorers were now approaching the sunmiit of the central table land 
of the North American continent, where, 1,680 feet above the sea-level, ai'e 
situated the sources alike of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Red 
River of the North, the three great arteries, bound, the tirst for the Atlantic 
Ocean, the second for the Gulf of Mexico, and the third for Hudson's Bay. 
As the common home of the infant streams was neared, the navigation of 
the Mississippi became more difficult, the river between the mouth of the 
Minnesota and the Falls of St. Anthony consisting of a series of rapids dash- 
ing over huge rocks encumbering the bed of the stream. Pike persevered, 
however, in his work of navigation, his little bark experiencing many a nar- 
row escape in its passage between the frowning precipices, until the Falls 
themselves were reached, when he was compelled to leave his own boat and 
take to small canoes. 

For four miles above the Falls, in the grandeur of which Pike owned him- 
self a little disappointed, all went well, but the remainder of the trip Avas 
fraught with difficulties and dangers of every description. Again and again 
the travelers were compelled to disembark, and wading through the water, 
often not a foot above the rocks, drag their boats after them, while every 
now and thi^n some wild Sioux warrior would appear upon the beetling 
heights shutting in the now restricted Father of AVaters, and brandish his 
spear above the heads of the defenseless whites. 

On the 4th October the mouth of the Crow River was passed on the west, 
and the tirst signs of dangers of a new description were noted in the wrecks, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 179 

lying liere and there of bark canoes, cut to pieces with tomaliawks, and with 
broken paddles and arrows lying near. Pike's interpreter tokl him that the 
canoes wei-e of Sioux and the arrows of Minnesota construction, pointing to the 
conclusion that war was raging hotly close at hand. Further examination of 
the relics revealed marks on the paddles of the canoes signifj'ing that Indian 
men and women had been killed, and the guide was eager in uiging retreat, 
on the ground that their party would be taken for Sioux invaders, and be 
cut to pieces at the first Chippeway village before any explanation could be 
given. Oidy a little time l)efore, three F'renchmen who had ventured up 
the river had been murdered by the Chippeways ; surely the white man 
would not risk sharing their fate? 

But the white man, true to his English blood, was not to be intimidated, 
and pressed on in spite of all difficulties, till, about two hundred and thirty 
miles above the Falls, in N. lat. 45", his men began to drop from fatigue and 
the severity of the cold. It was evidently impossible to proceed further by 
water, and Pike realized, now that it was too late, how fatal a mistake had 
been made in starting so late in the season. After consultation with his 
party, it was resolved to leave a small detachment with the bulk of the pro- 
visions in a log fort, and proceed in sledges with the hardiest of the men to 
the sources of the Mississippi. 

The fort was built with infinite difficulty, and it was not until mid-winter 
that the sledge journey was begun. Following the course of the Mississippi, 
now dwindled down to a small stream, scarcely three hundred yards wide, 
creeping sluggishly along through a flat, uninteresting country— its wide 
snow-clad stretches tenanted only by troops of elks, with here and there 
traces of recent conflict between the Indians of the North and the Sioux of 
the South — the pioneers reached the mouth of the Pine River, flowing from 
Leech Lake — the most southerly of the cluster of small reservoirs forming 
the sources of the great river — on the last day of the year. 

Here a deserted Chippeway encampment of fifty wigwams — or lodges, as 
they are called in this part of the country — was found, the marks about it, 
as interpreted by the Sioux guide, signifying that fifty warriors had recently 
marched against their enemies and killed four men and four women. The 
quaint record of the conflict consisted of four painted poles, sharpened at 
the ends to represent the women, placed about four cedar puppets represent- 
ing the men, the whole inclosed in a rough circle of poles, hung with deer- 
skins, plumes, silk handkerchiefs, etc. 



i8o Heroes of Amcriean Discovery. 

A little beyond this strange monument, Pike's party were overtaken by 
some Chippeways, accompanied by a Frenchman and an Englishman. They 
were at tirst about to discharge their arrows, but, reiognizing the American 
Hag, they desisted, and gave the explorers all the information in their pow- 
er. On the following day, Grant, the Englishman, and a member of the 
North-west Company, took Pike to his house on Red Cedar Lake, one of 
the sources of the Mississippi, and the young American's wrath was 
greatly excited on seeing the English tiag waving from the roof. Somewhat 
mollilied on hearing that the Hag was the property of the Indians, having 
been taken in some skirmish, Pike resumed his Journey under the guidance 
of aChippeway warrior named Curly Head, and arrived, on the 13th Janu- 
ary, 1800, at another establishment of the North-west Company on Sandy 
Lake, where he was hospitably received. 

A tour of the lake was successfully made, with the aid of some of the 
hardy agents of the North-west Company, and its latitude was determined 
to be 49° 9' 20" N. Leaving this, the second of the sources of the Missis- 
sippi, on the 21st January, our hero started for Leech Lake, with a young 
Indian as guide, and after a most arduous journey on foot in snow shoes, 
such as are worn by the Indians, on the 1st February he reached that im- 
portant and central point, long supposed to be the main source of the Father 
of Waters. Here, as on Red Cedar and Sandy Lakes, he found agents of 
the great North-west Company established in a well-built fort, and learned 
from them that from what are called the Forks of the Mississippi the right 
branch bears north-west, entering Lake Winnipeg eight miles further north, 
and beyond that again running to Upper Red Cedar Lake, a distance of eight 
miles ; while the left branch, called that of Leech Lake, bears south-west, and 
runs through a chain of meadows to the De Corbeau River, with which, and 
with the Red River of the North, it is connected by a series of portages. 

Unable, owing to the lateness of the season, to test the accuracy of the 
infoi-mation obtained. Pike was reluctantly com]ielled to turn back after 
making a survey of Leech Lake ; and it was not until many years after- 
ward that the journeys of Cass and Schoolcraft corrected the mistaken as- 
sumption that Leech Lake was the main source of the Mississippi. 

Before turning his back on Leech Lake, however. Pike obeyed the second 
clause of his instructions by summoning a council of Chippeway warriors, 
on whom he urged the conclusion of peace with the Sioux, inviting some of 
them to return with him to St. Louis. He succeeded in both these objects, 



Heroes of Amcrica^t Discovery. i8i 

though the latter was only brought about after much persuasion. As was 
natural, the Chippeways were not over-eager to trust themselves in the 
Sioux country ; but when Pike exclaimed at the close of the interview, 
"What! are there no soldiers at Leech, Red, and Rainy Lakes who have 
the heart to carry the calumet of peace for their Father T' two celebrated 
young warriors, bearing the extraordinary names of the Buck and the Beau, 
sprang forward to offer their services. They were eagerly accejited, and 
adopted as Pike's children. We are happy to be able to add that their 
young "father" allowed them to have no reason to regret their decision, 
but that they arrived with him in safety at St. Louis, after a successful re- 
turn voyage down the Mississij^pi. 

Soon after his arrival at St. Louis, after this fairly successful trip, Pike 
Avas again sent out on an exploratory expedition ; this time with orders to 
survey the regions south of the Missouri, and to trace the Arkansas and 
Red Rivers, already known as tributaries of the Mississippi, to their sources 
in the far West. 

The exploring party, which consisted of twenty-three members, including 
a surgeon and an interpreter, started on this second journey on the 15th 
July, 1800, taking with them a number of Indians belonging to the Osage 
and Pawnee tribes, who had been redeemed from captivity among the Pota- 
watomies, and were now to be restored to their friends. Ascending the 
Missouri in two boats, the mixed company reached, on the 26th July, the 
Osage River, which, flowing from the south, pours its vast bulk of waters 
into the Missouri. Here they were received with eager, though quiet 
enthusiasm by the natives, and a touching scene ensued between the rela- 
tives restored to each other through the mediation of the white men. 

The Osage Indians, dwelling in the fair country on either side of the 
beautiful river named after them, seem to have attained to a rare degree of 
civilization, possessing a kind of republic, presided over by a small body of 
chiefs, whose resolutions required the ratiflcation of a selected council of 
warriors. Pike and his white companions were feasted with grain, beans and 
pumpkins, the number of entertainments being rather embarrassing, as it 
was considered etiquette to taste of every thing offered. 

Leaving the friendly Osage Indians still rejoicing over the return of the 
captiv(^s, Pike now struck across the country in a south-easterly direction 
for the Arkansas River, passing tlie mouth of the Platte and Kansas, both 
ninor tributaries of the Missouri, on whose banks dwelt the Pawnee 



1 82 Heroes of American Discovery. \ 

Indians, a race differing but little, if at all, from the Osages. After an ar- 
duous march through a mountainous country, the dividing range between 
the Kansas and Arkansas Rivers was crossed on the 14th October, and late 
on the same day a branch of the latter river was reached. 

On Sunday, the 19th October, the Arkansas itself was first sighted, and, 
crossing it in canoes, constructed on the si)ot under his own superintendence, 
the gallant young leader proceeded to carry out the instructions he had re- 
ceived, by tracing its course through all its devious windings, in Avhat was 
then an untrodden wilderness, tenanted chieHy by buffalo, elk, deer, and 
wild horses. 

Being totally unprepared for the great length of the river between its 
junction with the Mississippi in north latitude 34° 64' and west longitude 
01° 10', or for the severity of the climate, as its birthplace in the Rocky 
Mountains on the borders of Utah was approached in mid-winter, the ex- 
plorers endured very great hardships. The head of the Arkansas River 
was reached late in December, and was found to be no less than 192 miles 
west of its outlet from the mighty ridge dividing the rivers flowing into the 
Pacific from those which find their final home in the Arctic Ocean, Hudson's 
Bay, or the Gulf of Mexico. 

Footsore, weary, and half-starved though he and his followers were, Pike 
paused but long enough to ascertain the exact X)osition of the source of the 
Arkansas, before he struck across country to work out the second i)ortion 
of the problem given to him to solve, namely, how and where did the most 
southerly of the western liranches of the Mississii)i)i rise, and what was its 
course before entering the now Avell-known lowlands of Louisiana? 

Under the impression that the Red River must spring into being almost 
simultaneously with, and certainly at no verj- great distance from, its sister 
tributary the Arkansas, the young commander led his exhausted men in a 
southerly direction, and i)resently came upon a broad stream flowing in a 
south-easterly direction. Surely this must be what he was seeking; and, 
elated at the rai)idity of his imaginary success. Pike erected a fort on the 
banks of the newly-found river, in token that it henceforth belonged to the 
United States. The next step was to embark on the stream, which, as the 
explorers hoped, would soon bring them down to the outpost of Natchito- 
ches, near its junction with the Father of "Waters. 

All went well for several days. Visits fi'om Spaniards from the South 
only served to strengthen the impression that the Red River was found, but 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



183 



on the 26th February a terribl(i revelation was made by the ari-ival of a par- 
ty of Europeans from Santa F6, one of tlie Spanisli stations in New Mexico, 
who informed Pilce that a i)arty of Utah Indians, members of the great un- 
tamed Shoshone family, were about to attack him, and that he was infring- 
ing the laws of the Mexican Government by navigating the Rio Bravo de^ 
Norte without periiiisNJon. 




CAl'TATN LEWIS BEHOLDING THE MISSOURI. 



The report of the intentions of the Utahs seems scarcely to have troubled 
Pike, but at the mention of the Rio Bravo del Norte, he exclaimed, "What ! 
is not this tlie Red River r' " No, sir," j-eplied the spokesman of the de- 
tachment from Santa Fe ; "it is the Rio del Norte." "Immediately," 



184 Heroes of Anicrica^i Discovery. 

adds Pike in his own account of this bitter disappointment, "I ordered my 
Hag to be taken down and rolled np, feeling how sensibly I had committed 
myself." 

He was right ; the Sx)aniards had come ont to make the intrnders their 
prisoners, for New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas had not yet been ceded to the 
United States. In vain Pike pleaded that he had been acting in ignorance ; he 
and his people were compelled to accompany the escort to Santa Fe, and 
though they were treated most courteously and hospitably, rather as guests 
than as captives, all hope of reaching the Red River had to be abandoned. 

After a detention of some months at Santa Fe, already a fine city, sitna- 
ted among the Rocky Mountains on a plain 1,047 feet above the sea-level, 
the Americans were sent back to their own territory by a circuitous route 
through New Mexico and Texas, which, though then as now tenanted by 
the wild and predatory Navajoe, Apache, Utah, Comanche, and other tribes, 
they found to be traversed by fairly good roads made for the use of mis- 
sionaries and miners, who had now for more than two centuries been at 
work in these western wilds. 

Pike arrived at Natchitoches on the Red River on the 1st July, after an 
absence of one year from the United States, and we hear no more of him as 
an explorer. The Avork done by him was, however, but the p)relude, or 
rather — as much of it was simultaneous with that of the heroes we are now 
about to join — the accompaniment of the more extensive expedition under 
Captains Lewis and Clarke, sent out by the American Government in May, 
1804, with orders to exj^lore the Missouri, the chief of all the affluents of the 
Mississii)pi, to its source, and then to make their way by tlie shortest route 
to the first navigalile water on the western side, which they were to trace to 
the shores of the Pacific. 

The new expedition, consisting of some forty-five members — sixteen only 
of whom were, hoAvever, to go the whole distance — and provided with one 
keel-boat and two open boats, started up the Missouri on the ICth May, 1804. 
The French outposts of St. Charles and La Charette, in the present state of 
Missouri, were passed, the exact i^ositions of the mouths of the Osage, Kan- 
sas, and Pl.'itte tributaries were noted, and the unknown districts occupied 
by the Ottoe Indians w^ere entered in July. Here the American exjilorers 
held a meeting Avith a number of Ottoe chiefs, who expressed themselves 
l^lensed that their land now belonged to the white men from the Enst in- 
stead of the French, and added tlie na'ive hope that their father, President 



Heroes of American Discovery. 185 

Jefferson, would send them firms to defend themselves from their enemies, 
and hunt game for themselves and their little ones. 

Beyond the mouth of the Platte, or Nebraska, the work of surveying the 
Missouri became extremely arduous, on account of its many and sudden 
windings. On one side lay the picturesque prairie and forest lands of Iowa, 
with its rugged ravines and striking bluffs ; on the other the vast plain of 
Nebraska, sloping gradually upward to the Rocky Mountains. Now in 
Iowa, now in Nebraska, the party steadfastly followed the course of the 
fickle river, and toward the close of August they came to the mouth of the 
Sioux River, on the borders of Dacotah, where they found themselves on 
comparatively familiar ground, the Dacotah or Sioux warriors having long 
been on friendly terms, alike with the Americans from the East and the 
French from the North. 

A little above the mouth of the Sioux the Missouri makes a sudden and 
abrupt detour to the west, known as the Great Bend, following which our 
heroes were proceeding to traverse Dacotah, when, on the 25th September, 
a difTiculty for the first time occurred with the natives, some of whom de- 
clared that the expedition should proceed no further. The large boat was 
waiting in the middle of the river for Captain Clarke, who had gone on 
shore with five of his men, when a party of Indians gathered about the 
small detachment with bent bows and threatening gestures. It was a critical 
moment, but, fortunately for the Americans, a signal given by Clarke to the 
soldiers in the boat was seen and understood. Twelve men jumped from it 
into one of the smaller boats, and, supported by this reenforcement, the 
Captain lowered his weapons, advanced to the leader of the Indians, and 
offered his hand. It was not accepted, but, surprised at this sudden move- 
ment, the Indians paused in the very act of drawing their bows to see what 
might be the meaning of the white man's strange behavior. 

Finding his proffered hand rejected, perhaps because the red men had not 
yet learned the significance of its offer, Clarke turned his back on his assail- 
ants, and, surrounded by his men, walked quietly back to his boat. He was 
allowed to embark and put off unmolested, but before the large vessel was 
reached, the native Avarriors had decided that he was a man to be feared 
and courted. Four of the boldest, therefore, jumped into the Missouri, 
waded to the boat, and with many quaint and touching gestures offered 
their friendship to their white brother. It was accepted, as a matter of 
course ; the four representatives were allowed to go up the river for some 



1 86 Heroes of Atneriean Discovery. 

little distance in the big boat, the like of which they had never seen before ; 
and the next day a grand meeting of the t^i^)ux was held, at which the 
whites were most hospitably entertained, though most of the speeches in 
their honor wound up with j'tetitions for presents. 

After a thorough examination of the Great Bend, which has been justly 
characterized as one of the most remarkable features of the Missouri, form- 
ing, as it does, a circuit of some thirty miles, Lewis and Clarke led their 
men in a north-westerly direction to the mouth of the Cheyenne or Skyenne, 
just below the 45th parallel of north latitude, where they were met by a 
French trader, who informed them that the previous winter he had pene- 
trated to the Black Mountains, three hundred leagues to the westward, 
proving our assertion at the beginning of this chapter, that the first exjilor- 
ation of America was accomplished, as it were, unconsciously. 

Early in October the travelers entered the districts occupied by the Man- 
dans, a native tribe holding some very peculiar notions with regard to the 
powers of the Great Spirit, whom they also called the Great Medicine, rec- 
ognizing his agency in every cure of ill, whether physical, mental or tem- 
poral. Unfortunately, in spite of this strangely advanced creed, the 
Mandans were a degraded and dissolute race, ready to give and equally 
ready to take offense ; the tomahawk being the usual weapon resorted to for 
revenge. 

In spite of the nnj)romising character of the x^eople among whom they 
found themselves, the American leader resolved, as the season was now so 
far advanced, to build a fort in the Mandan country in which to spend the 
Avinter, and to resume their task with fresh ardor in the ensuing spring. 
The friendship of the Mandans and of the Minnetarees, dwelling in the high- 
lands of Minnesota on the east, was conciliated by presents, etc., and a site 
chosen for the fort in N. lat. 47°. Aided by the advice and assistance of a 
number of the English Hudson's Bay Company, and of a Canadian French- 
man who had sjient some time among the Cheyenne Indians, the soldiers 
quickly constructed, not only a fort for their protection, but a number t)f 
cabins for their comfort ; and the whole of the winter was passed in study- 
ing the ways of the natives, hunting, etc., the monotony of the residence in 
the spot being often relieved by visits from French or Canadian fur-traders, 
from whom much valuable information was obtained. 

Early in April of the ensuing year, 1805, the camp at Fort Mandan. as the 
temporary settlement had been called, was broken up, and the party, now 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



187 



numbering thirty-two, and 
with their means of naviga- 
tion increased to eight boats 
and canoes, once more em- 
barked on the Missouri. 
To aid in intercourse with 
the Shoshone or Snake In- 
dians of Montana, Idaho, 
and Oregon, two interpreters 
were secured, namely, 
George Drewyer and Tous- 
saint Ohaboruiean, the latter 
of whom was accompanied 
by his wife, a young Snake 
woman who had been taken 
prisoner by his tribe some 
time before. 

On the 13th April the 
mouth of the Little Missouri 
was passed, and on the 26th 
that of the rapid Yellow- 
stone River, from Sublette's 
Lake in the Rocky Mount- 
ains. From thi s great 
landmai'k the course of the 
Missouri — and, as a result, 
of the explorers — was due 
west, and the character, 
alike of the scenery, the 
fauna, and the flora, clianged 
perceptibly. In the journals 
from which our narrative is 
culled, we find notes on the 
Strang e apx)earance pre- 
sented by banks and sand- 
bars covered Avith salt, 
looking like frost; on the 




[88 Heroes of Ame7'ica7i Discovery. 

white and red "bluffs," i)robably rich in minerals, on either side of the 
stream ; and most interesting of all, on meetings of frequent occurrence with 
white or brown bears. On more than one occasion, Captain Lewis almost 
lost his life in encounters with these formidable creatures. His first escape 
was from a white bear, one of two which suddenly appeared in his path 
when he was on shore with only one hunter, and which, though badly 
wounded, pursued him for a long distance. 

On another occasion Lewis went in pursuit of a brown bear, which had 
been wounded by some of his men, and found the poor creature lying in a 
kind of bed in the earth, two feet deep and five feet long, which he had 
scooped out for himself after receiving his death blow. Lewis put an end 
to his agonies by firing through his skull, and in his account of the matter 
he speaks in terms of high admiration of the courage and intelligence dis- 
played by all the brown bears he had opportunities of watching. 

In the different journals kept by various members of this great expedi- 
tion, our readers who love sporting adventures will find many another 
fascinating anecdote of a similar kind to the two we have selected ; but, 
with our heroes, we must press on for the AVest, pausing, as they did, on 
the 3d of June, 1805, at a spot some miles above the mouth of the Yellow- 
stone, where the Missouri divides into two great channels, or forks, as they 
are called in America. Thus far, all had been successful. The covirse of 
the Missouri had been carefully traced, and something had been learned of 
that of every great tributary ; but now a mistake would be fatal. From 
what the natives said, the leaders of the expedition were convinced that one 
of these two channels led to the sources, not only of the Missouri, but also 
of the Columbia, that great river of the West first, as we believe, discovered 
by Viscaino in 1602, though the honor due to him has been given to a certain 
Captain Gray, of Boston, who, in 1792, entered the mouth of the mighty 
stream when on a trading expedition, and gave it the name it still retains, 
after his own vessel. 

Tlio camp was pitched below the junction of the two forks, and an earnest 
consultation held as to which of the two channels should now be followed. 
The one flowing from the north was narrower but deeper than that from the 
south, and its waters were of the brown, turbid character which had already 
earned for the ISfissouri its name of the Mud Riv(^r. Sur<^ly this northern 
branch must be the true Missouri ! So urged all the members of the expe- 
dition, except the two leaders, who, judging more scientifically than their 



He7^oes of American Discovery. 



189 



men, were of opinion tliat, tliongli broader, the southerly branch, with its 
clear and transparent current, was more likely to have come from the rocky 
home assigned by all the natives to the great tributary under survey. 
The men, though unconvinced of the justice of their superiors' opinion, 




VIEW IN THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 



yielded at once ; and after a cursory examination of the northern branch, it 
was resolved to follow the more southerly. The natives of every district 
traversed, and the traders who had visited the western coast, had agreed in 
describing some very magnificent falls formed by the Missouri at no very 



IQO Hcj'ocs of Avtcrican Discovery, 

great distance from its source. The finding of tliese falls would therefore 
be the final proof that the river was the true Missouri, and Captain Lewis 
now huiried forward with a few men, in the hope of solving all doubt before 
the main body started from the junction. 

A march of a couple of days brought the pioneers to a lofty ridge, from 
which they had their first view of the Rocky Mountains— that grand con- 
tinuation of the Cordilleras of Mexico, which forms a kind of backbone to 
Xorth America, and is the common ancestral home of the rivers of the far 
AVest, and of many of those whose last resting-x>laces are in the extreme 
North or the Gulf of Mexico. Twelve miles beyond the ridge, a short halt 
was made, on account of the illness of Captain Lewis, and on the ensuing- 
day, June 13, as the party were leisurely inoceeding on their way in a 
southerly- direction, the leader heard a sound which made him forget his 
weakness, in the hope that the Falls were now within a short distance. 

Hastening in the direction of the "roar," the explorers soon came insight 
of what looked at first like a column of smoke, but which turned out to be 
spray driven by the wind ; and seven miles from the spot where the sound 
of the falling had been first heard, they came upon the magnificent cata- 
racts, second only in beauty to those of Niagara. Sending back a man with 
the joyful news of his discovery to Captain Clarke, Captain Lewis now pro- 
ceeded to examine the Falls, and to his delighted surprise he found that 
the scene which had so impressed him on his first arrival was, as it were, 
but the oi)ening chapter of a series of rapids and cascades extending over a 
distance of no less than sixteen miles and a-half. Above what our hero 
named the Crooked Falls, on account of the rugged and irregular nature of 
the rocks over which the water dashes, the river makes a sudden bend to 
the north, and as Lewis was following its course, he heard a roar as of a 
continuous discharge of musketry above his head. 

Turning rapidly to ascertain its cause, the deader, after traversing a few 
hundred yards only, reached the culminating point in the panorama. A 
huge shelving rock, with a surface unbroken by any irregularity, rises uj) 
as if by magic from the bed of the river, which dashes over the obstacle in 
an uninterrupted sheet of water, and is received in a ra^ ine of picturesque 
beauty, between the rugged sides of which it foams and rages, as if in de- 
spair at the result of the effort made in its stupendous leap. 

In the very moment of this great and significant success, when the tri- 
um]^hant conclusion of the expedition had become almost a certainty. Cap- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



191 



tain Lewis had 3'et another narrow escape in an encounter with a brown 
bear. Absorbed in the exanunation of the beauties around him, he had for- 
gotten that, though as yet unlvnown to civilization, the neighborhood was 
ah'eady tenanted by many a formidable foe to the explorer ; and he had 
forgotten even to load his rifle, which was hanging useless in his hand, 




GRIZZLY BEAR. 



when he suddenly became aware that a large brown bear was advancing 
stealthily upon him. There was nothing for it but flight ; for what could 
an unarmed man do against so terrible an antagonist ? Captain Lewis there- 
fore made for the nearest tree as fast as his legs w^ould carry him, but, find- 
ing the bear gained raj)idly u])on him, it struck him that the river would 
be a safer refuge. Into the Missouri, therefore, he j)lunged, and, standing 



tgi J^crois of American Discovery. 

ill it waist deep, he couf routed the bear, liolding before him the \veaj)on 
known as an expontooii. 

The bear duly arrived at the water s edge, and the Captain's fate seemed 
sealed ; but at that critical moment, for some reason never explained, the 
huge quadruped took alarm, turned tail, and ran uj^ the bank with greater 
haste than dignity, turning about every now and then as if fearful of being 
jnirsued. 

This terrible danger escaped, Ijewis resumed his examination of the sur- 
rounding scenery, and when, a couple of days later, he was joined by Clarke 
and his men, it was resolved that no time should be lost in continuing the 
ascent of the Missouri. It being absolutely impossible, however, to take 
the boats over the Falls, a considerable delay occurred before any arrange- 
ment could be made for transporting the baggage. A skin-boat, the frame 
of which had been brought in readiness, was tirst put together, but it was 
found altogether inadequate to the purxK^se for which it was intended ; and 
under the diivction of Clarke, eight strong canoes were tiually constructed, 
in which such luggage as could not be dispensed with was packed. The re- 
mainder of the luggage was then concealed in a deep hole called a cade, or 
deposit, which was carefully closed to protect it from the Indians and white 
bears which haunted the neighborhood of the Falls, and which would cer- 
tainly have made strange havoc among the valuable books, specimens of 
plants, drawings, etc., had they come nix^n them uiu xpectedly. 

Before the end of June, all was ready. The canoes admirably answered 
the purpose for which they were intended, and the voyage was resumed in 
the highest spirits. Little progress had been made, however, when Captain 
Clarke missed some geographical notes he had taken, and turned back, ac- 
companied by his servant York, the interpreter Chaboiiuean. and the lat- 
ter s wife and child. To retrace his steps for the sake of making sure of a 
few facts seemed a simple enough proceeding, yet in so doing Clarke ran a 
risk of never comj^leting his journey. On his arrival at the Falls, a terrible 
storm came on, and he took refuge with his party beneath some shelving 
rocks in a ravine hard by, thinking to resume his walk in an hour or so. As 
he waited, however, a torrent of rain and hail suddenly seemed to collect in 
a solid mass, and poured into the ravine in a strong current, bringing with 
it huge fragments of rocks, uprooted trees, and all manner of debru^. There 
was not a moment to lose ; the Captain seized his gun, and, pushing before 
him the Indian woman, who had caught her child up from the net in which 



Heroes of American Discovery. 193 

it lay at lier feet, he sprang up the ravine, closely followed by Chabornaean. 
So sudden was the rise of the water, that it was up to Clarke's waist before 
he gained the bank ; and as he turned to look back on reaching that refuge, 
he saw the whole ravine tilled, and the net from which the child had been 
rescued whirled rapidly out of sight. An instant's hesitation, and the whole 
party would have been swept down the Great Falls. 

Returning in haste to his camp after this miraculous escape, Clarke found 
that his companions had suifered terribly in the storm. Many of the men 
were bleeding from wounds received from the hail ; and after the rain and 
wind had ceased, the heat had been so excessive that even strong soldiers 
had succumbed to it. Some men sent back next day to look for Clarke's 
gun, compass and umbrella, which he had left behind in his hasty retreat, 
found only the compass, covered with mud and sand, at the mouth of the 
ravine, and reported that huge rocks now choked up what had been an 
empty defile when the leader's party had taken refuge in it. 

Beyond the Great Palls the navigation of the Missouri was extremely ar- 
duous. The channel was often narrow, and much obstructed by shallows, 
inlets, and impediments of every description. Here and there, some village 
perched on a bluff overlooking the stream broke the almost solemn loneliness 
of the scene ; but the quaint booths composing these villages were chiefly 
deserted, their owners, the Snakes or Shoshones, spending the greater part 
of their time in hunting. Onward, however, pressed the eight canoes, and 
about the middle of July the first spurs of the Rocky Mountains Avere 
reached, henuning in the river ever more and more, sometimes even almost 
shutting it in from light and air, so closely did the perpendicular clitt's on 
either side approach each other. 

On the lOtli July, the grand range of rocks from which the Missouri issues, 
forming one of the most magnificent mountain passes of the world, was 
reached, and the first part of the journey may be said to have been per- 
formed. Naming the pass the "Gates" of the Rocky Mountains, our he- 
roes made their way through it in their canoes, each stroke of the paddle 
revealing fresh beauties and ever-increasing solemnity. " The convulsion of 
the passage,'' says Rees, alluding to the first breaking forth of the Missouri 
from its mountain cradle, ** must have been terrible, since at its outlet there 
are vast columns oi rock torn from the mountain, which are strewed on 
both sides of the river — the trophies, as it were, of the victory." 

The Gates of the Rocky Mountains form a gorge of between five and six 



194 Heroes of American Discovery. 

miles long, and beyond it the scenery is of very great beauty. Anxious 
now to reach the sources of the Missouri and the headwaters of the Colum- 
bia, Lewis and Clarke paused but to note the chiel" features of the neigh- 
borhood, and shortly reached a spot where the great river they had followed 
so far divides into three forks. To these they gave the names of Jefferson, 
Madison and Gallatin, after three great politicians of the young reiniblic, 
and, after some hesitation between them, selected the lirst, tiowing in a 
south-westerly direction, as the most likely to be the true Missouri. The 
event proved that they were right. The Jefferson led them through the 
very central recesses of the Rocky Mountains, and on the 12th August, 1805, 
a small gap between the lofty mountainous ridges aa as reached, from which 
issued the springhead of the mighty Missouri. 

The exact position of the source of the river, the course of which they had 
followed for no less than 8,000 miles, was carefully noted by the explorers, 
and found to be N. hit. 45°, AY. long. 112°; and, after congratulating each 
other on the great success achieved, the journey was resumed with fresh 
ardor and enthusiasm. 

It was now of the utmost importance to obtain guides, as the expedition 
was totally at a loss as to the direction to be taken to reach the Columbia. 
Traces had again and again been seen of the encampments of Snake Indians, 
and a fairly good native road traversed the mountains ; but the red men had 
evidently heard rumors of th<^ approach of the pale skins, those scourges 
from the South and East who had already dilven so many tribes westward. 

In the absence of guides, it was decided to follow the Indian road to the 
summit of the mountains ; and the same day which witnessed the discovery 
of the source of the Missouri, was also the date of the first visit of white 
men to the summit of the ridge forming the watershed between the Pacific 
and the central table-lands of North America. Pausing but a few minutes 
to gaze upon the wonderful panorama stretching away to the South Sea, 
for which so numy previous explorers had sought in vain, the Americans 
began the descent of the Rocky IMountains, and at a distance of about three- 
quarters of a mile from their summit, they came to a small "creek of clear 
water running to the westward." Subsequent observations proved this to 
be the Columbia; but, unable without assistance to be sure of its identify 
with the second river to be explored, the leaders of the party still ft)llowed 
the Indian road, and on the 18th July were rewarded for their patience by 
coming upon a small party of Indians, who fled at their approach. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 195 

Eagerly giving chase, Captain Lewis and several of his men succeeded — 
though the men escaped — in surprising a woman and a little girl, who, rec- 
ognizing the hopelessness of getting away, sat down on the ground and bent 
their heads, ready for the death-blow which they thought they must expect 
from the strangers. Greatly touched by this pathetic action, Lewis laid 
down his weax)ons, and, taking the woman by the hand, made signs to her 
that she was to be unharmed. She appeared to understand him, and, giv- 
ing her a few trifling presents, the leader persuaded her to go and fetch 
another woman who had been with her when he first came in sight of the 
party. In a few minutes the two returned, and, after painting the cheeks 
of his three cax)tives with vermilion, a sign among the Snake Indians of 
peace, Lewis induced them to lead him to their camp, that he might confer 
with their chiefs. 

After a march of two miles, with the Indians leading the way, a troop of 
some sixty warriors, mounted on good horses, was sighted. The mediators 
hastened to meet the chief, explaining who the white men were, and a scene 
of some absurdity ensued, the Indians embracing tlie Americans, and cover- 
ing them with grease and paint. This wild welcome was succeeded by the 
smoking of a pipe of peace in common. Captain Lewis first taking a whiff 
and then passing it round to his hosts. The friendship between the Snakes 
and Americans thus ratified, the chiefs conducted their white brothers to 
their camp, where a grand consultation was held as to the best means of 
reaching the Columbia, and tracing its course to the Pacific. 

The information given was not very satisfactory. The river, said the In- 
dians, flowed through a country where timber for building canoes and food 
for filling the stomach were alike scarce. No one cared to undertake the 
task of guiding the explorers on their jDerilous journey, and although, after 
a good deal of persuasion and bribery, ten men were induced to promise 
their assistance, it was in such a grudging fashion as to promise but little 
success. 

At this juncture a touching incident occurred. The wife of Chabornjean, 
the interpreter, who, it will be remembered, was a Snake by birth, entered 
the camp, and, recognizing her brother in the chief, she flung herself into 
his arms, and with many tears sobbed out her joy at finding him still alive. 
The accounts given by the restored captive of the kindness of the white 
men, their faithfulness and generosity to those who trusted them, and their 
power to avenge themselves on those who deceived them, were fruitful of 



iq6 I/crocs of ^hficn'tafi Discovery. 

1 ho l>t\><t results. Tho rliii^f of tlu> Snakes constMited to send help to the 
main body of the expedition, \vhieh had not \v{ sealed the heiiihts of the 
Roeky Mountains, and while preparations wore boinu- made for the advance 
of the whole party to the Paoilie, Captain Clarke was provided with guides 
for a trial trip to the Cohnnbia. 

Mount(Hl on a tine horse, lent to him by an Indian, Clark^^ quickly n^ieluxl 
the river, though the nuumtaius to be traversed were rugged and broken in 
the extreuu' ; but here the dilUeulties in tracing the course of tlie Columbia 
becanu^ so great, that it was evidently impossible to do so without spending 
the whole of the remainder of the year in the neighborhood. So far as we 
can make out from the varions accounts of his expedititui, Clarke did not 
actnally reach any of the head\vatt>rs of the Columbia, which are situated 
between N. lat. .^4'' and A'2''\ but he made a sulliciently thorough survey of 
tile mountains from which tiu^ more noitherly o'i its two branches procetnls, 
to convince himself of the identity i>f that branch with the river of \ iscaino 
and (iray. A rt^sult of lliis trial trip of secondary importance was tiiat the 
leaih'r recognized the hopelessness of attempting to descend the Columbia 
in canoes, and on his return to the Indian camp, it was agreed that a di^tour 
should b(^ made in a uiu'therly direction, so as to strike the river below the 
nu>nntain pass from wliich it tlows on its way to join its sister stream inN. 
hit. -ur' ."■> , \V. long. 1 IS .V>'. 

On tht» 'i;>d August the t^xpedition was once more tm route. The sources 
of the Missouri had b«>en discovered, the position of those of the Columbia 
determined, and \\\o ctuintry between the two traversed more than once. 
All, th(M'efore, that now remained to be done was to trace the great river of 
tlie West to ilu» Pacitic. Accom]>tinied by a number of Shoshone guides, 
the .\mericans made their way towanl the ocean by a rugged Indian path, 
halting now at i>ne, now at another Indian village; and after much waiuler- 
ing t(^ and fr(\ with terrible sutferings from cold and hunger. tlu\v entered 
a district inliabited by a peoph» calling themselves C)otlashoots. wlui turned 
out to be memlHU's of one of tlu* numerous inland Columbian tribes who in- 
habit the rt\«iions on the Pacitic Inn ween N. lat. ,"i'.}'' 80' and -ir)"". 

AfttU" leaving the Ootlaslu^ots, the explorers endunnl the extremities of 
famine, and W(>n^ compelled tirst \o kill and eat tluur luu'ses, and then to 
purchase for fmnl the dog's of waudtuing Indians met with lui their iniinfiil 
way to the coast. At length, on the loth September, thelowt>r course of the 
upp(^r branch of the Columbia, to which the name of I>tnvis was given, was 



Heroes of tinier lean Discovery. 197 

reached, aiul from Twisted Hair, a ehief of the NezPcM'ces, or Pieroed-nosed 
Indians, anotlnn- inhmd Colund)iMn tribe, the joyful news was lieard that 
the ocean was not far distant Twisti^d Hair and his subjects, wlio received 
tlieir pcMMilinr niipellationof Nez Percoson account of some of them wearinp; 
a wliite shell suspended from their noses, assisted their white visitors in 
building canoes, in which the explorers lloated easily down t Ik* now wi(h^ 
and ra])id Columbia to the home of the Sokulks, belon,<;iuu; to the same 
great family as the Ootlashoots and Nez Perces, a wild but peacenble i)eo- 




l!ASAi;riO riNNTACMSS ON TIIK COLUMniA RIVKB. 



pie, living in wt'll-built huts, and clothing themselves in the skins of elk, 
deer, and other trophies of the chase. 

Below the Sokulks dwelt the Plshquitjiaws, Avho hnd never seen a white 
man, and were proportionately astonislied at th<^ sudden appearance among 
them of the Americans. Except that th(\y wore scarcely any clothing at 
all, the Pishquitpaws differed but little from the other inland Oolumbian 
tribes visited ; and when their terror at the arrival of their strange guests— 
who they thought had fallen straight from the sky — was somewhat subsided, 
they were ready enough to giv(^ information and show hospitality. 

As the canoes floated down the Columbia toward tln^ (jJreat Falls, the 
spirits of the i)arty were cheered by the sight on the west of a lofty snow- 



198 Heroes of American Discovery. 

tipped mountain, which tliey identified as that of St. Helen's, seen by Van 
couver from the mouth of tlie great river ; and on the22d October the Falls 
themselves were reached, where the Columbia, driven into a narrow channel 
some forty-five yards wide, with a huge black rock on one side and mighty 
hills on the other, whirls and boils in a terrific numner. The Indian guides 
voted this passage impassable for canoes ; but, unwilling to undergo either 
the delay or fatigue necessary to transx)ort the baggage by land, the leaders 
of the expedition determined to run the risk of shooting the Falls in their 
frail barks. To their own relief and the intense delight of the Indians the 
passage was successfully performed, and all dangers seemed now over, when 
the explorers discovered that the Falls wen^ but the gateway, so to speak, 
of a yet more formidable impediment to navigation, known as the Great 
Narrows, where the river for three miles had literally to eat its way through 
a black rock varying in width from thirty to one hundred yards. Into this 
terrible passage, however, the canoes entered, and after a struggle, in which 
the skill and endurance of every member of the party were tried to the ut- 
most, the smooth waters below were entered, and in the numerous seals 
disj)orting themselves on either side of the little vessels, the weary explor- 
ers read signs that the coast was now indeed near at hand. 

The Columbia now gradually widened ; on the first day of November the 
first appearance of tide water was noticed, and about the eighth of the same 
month the first view was obtained of the Pacific Ocean. A somewhat tem- 
pestuous trip of a few days followed this great era in American exploration ; 
but the close of the month found the whole party in the mouth of the great 
Columbia. The American continent had been traversed for the first time by 
scientific observers, and the true extent of the American dominion could 
never again be doubted. 

The first week in December was spent in beating about the Pacific coast 
in search of a suitable refuge in which to pass the Avinter, and on the 7th a 
small bay was selected, which was called MerryAveather, after the Christian 
name of Captain Lewis. Here temporary tents were soon erected, and, in 
the long dreary months which followed, ac(piaintance was made with the 
Clatsops, Chinnooks, Killamucks, and other seaboard tribes of the great 
Columbia family, who, though differing in much, agreed in a remarkable 
fondness for artificial deformity, especially for the flattening of the fore- 
head. Hence the designation of Flatheads applied to all the tribes dwelling 
west of the Itocky Mountains by their cousins of the East. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



199 



With the early spring tlie camp at Merry weather Bay was broken up, and 
the exploring party turned their faces homeward. A journey of a couple 
of months, over much the same route as that followed on the way to the 
Pacific, brought them once more to the navigable portion of the Missouri, 
and, sailing down, they arrived at Fort Louis, at its junction with the 
Father of Waters, on the 22d May, 1806. 




TUK GIANTESS GEYSER OF YELLOWSTONE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE NORTH-WEST COAST, AND THE WORK OF THE 
HUDSON'S BAY AND NORTH-WEST COMPANIES. 

rilO bring oiir account of the course of discovery between the 30th and 
-L 60th parallels of north latitude down to the date of the return of Lewis 
and Clarke from their great expedition, we must join for a moment some 
explorers of yet another nationality, who, from the North, continued the 
Avork begun by the Spanish from the South, opening the way for the 
completion by Englishmen of the examination of the Pacific shore of 
America. 

Early in the eighteenth century, the Russians, though they had failed to 
round the most northern promontories of Asia, had penetrated to its eastern 
shores, and were thus brought nearer to America than any other European 
power. After the establishment of stations in Kamtschatka, the efforts of 
the Russian Government were directed to ascertaining whether the two great 
continents were or were not connected ; and when this question was partially 
set at rest in 1728 by Behring, who reached the Asiatic side of the straits 
bearing his name, an expedition was at once fitted out under his command 
for sailing direct to the northern shores of America, and discovering if possi- 
ble, the long sought passage. 

The story of the heroic struggle of Behring, and his melancholy death 
after his discovery of the Aleutian and other islands, with the adventures 
in the same latitudes of his comrade, Tchirikow, belongs to the history of 
Arctic exploration. We mention them here, however, as the openers of 
the north-western gate of the Pacitic, their discoveries having greatly sim- 
plified the problems still to be solved between Cape Mendocino and the most 
southerly point reached by them. 

The news of the existence of navigable straits between America and Asia 
resulted in the turning of the attention of scientific men of Europe to tlie 
North-west, and the relinquishment for a short time of the efforts of navi- 
gators to reach the extreme North by way of Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



20 1 



The great navigator Cook was the first to avail himself of the new passage. 
Not content with the splendid results achieved in his first two voyages, he 
determined to make yet another, and in his famous old ship, the Resolution^ 
accompanied by Captain Clarke in the Discovery^ he sailed from Plymouth 
for the third and last time on the 12th July, 1776. 




CAPTAIN JAMES COOK. 



As is known to every schoolboy, Cook reached the Sandwich Islands in 
safety, and, steering from them across the Pacific, he arrived on the western 
coast of America, in about N. lat. 50°. Steering into the inlet now known 
as Nootka Sound, between the island of the same name and that now called 



202 Heroes of Amcrua?i Discovciy. 

Vancouver's, the great explorer sailed iip tlie coast, passing between the 
modern Queen Charlotte's Island and the mainland. Cook, however, made 
no minute examination of its many interesting phenomena, till he came to 
Cape Prince of Wales (N. lat. %b° 33', W. long. 167° 59 ), whence he made a 
flying visit to the opposite coast before entering on the passage through 
Behring Straits, which was the most noteworthy feature of this grand trip. 
Leaving him to pursue his work to the bitter end which closed his splendid 
career, we join, as the next hero to add any thing to our knowledge of that 
portion of the north-west coast now under notice. Captain John Meares, sent 
out in a vessel named the KootTiCi by the merchants of India, with orders to 
supplement Cook's discoveries by every means in his power. 

The Kootl-a reached the coast of America, in N. lat. 60° 20', W. long. 146° 
30', after a jirotracted voyage across the Atlantic. The winter had already 
set in, and it appeared impossible to do any thing in the way of exploration 
until the spring. Captain Meares, was, however, unwilling to return with- 
out achieving any definite result, and he therefore, in spite of the mutinous 
spirit of his men, resolved to land on the shores of Prince William's 
Sound, and at least gain information respecting the natives of these remote 
latitudes. 

The people of Alaska, a strong, large-limbed, and tall race, with flat faces, 
high cheek-bones, and small, bead-like black eyes, who delighted in disfig- 
uring their \\\)s and noses with pendent ornaments, seem to have stood in 
considerable awe of their visitors, and supplied them with game and fish in 
abundance during the first few weeks of their stay. Early in November, 
however, all the terrors of the w^inter closed in upon the exiles ; food became 
scarce, and, in January, scurvy in its most awful forms broke out among 
them. When the hoped-for spring of the ensuing year, which was to effect 
so much, at last set in, half the men of the expedition had found their last 
resting-places beneath the snow, and the survivors were reduced to the 
greatest extremities. 

At this critical juncture two English trading vessels hove in sight, and 
from their captains, Portlock and Dixon, relief was obtained, though it 
seems to have been very grudgingly given, I\f eares being looked upon as an 
intruder likely to interfere with the profits of the fisheries. B(^fore food 
was given to his starving men, a promise was exacted from him that he 
would not trade on the coast, and he was therefore compelled to return to 
the Sandwich Islands just as he might have begun his work of exploration. 



Heroes of Americaii Discovery. 203 

Nothing daunted by this first faihire, we find Meares starting again for 
the North in January, 1788, this time in command of two vessels, the Felice 
and Ipliigema, and with a crew devoted to his service. After an interesting 
voyage across the Pacific, and a short halt in King George's Sound, our hero 
reached the Straits of Juan de Fuca, discovered, as we have seen, two cen- 
turies before by a Greek pilot of that name. Here the vessels were overtak- 
en by a terrible storm, and, the rugged buttresses of Vancouver's Island 
offering no shelter, their captains were compelled to steer for the south. 
The rocky shores of the modern Territory of Washington, then dotted with 
Indian villages, the mouth of the Columbia River, the pine-clad heights of 
Oregon, were passed in rapid succession — the names of Shoalwater Bav^, De- 
ception Bay, Destruction Island, and Cape Disappointment, given by Meares 
to the most noteworthy features of the scenery, still bearing witness to his 
despondency when thus driven in the opposite direction to that in Avhich he 
judged his work to be awaiting him. 

The early summer found the exj)lorers off the coast of Northern Califor- 
nia, then still known as New Albion, and after an unsuccessful, because 
probably a not very hearty effort to examine its fertile bays, the vessels 
were once more turned northward, with Nootka Sound as their goal. The 
weather being now more propitious, Meares sent a number of his men in 
one of the long-boats up the Straits of Juan de Fuca, with orders to exam- 
ine them thoroughly. The sailors, weary of their long detention on ship- 
board, started on this trip with eager delight ; but when day after day 
passed by, and there were no signs of their return, their master became un 
easy in their behalf. At last, after a long period of suspense, the boat was 
seen issuing from the narrow inlet, and an eager shout of joy from the large 
vessels hailed the fact that the numbers of the men were undiminished. But 
why did they row so slowly, and what was the meaning of their air of exhaus- 
tion and dejection ? As they came nearer, their comrades saw that each one 
of them was bleeding from terrible wounds, and when they had been helped 
up the ship-ladders, they told how they had been attacked as they rowed 
up the straits by two canoes full of armed warriors, and only escaped after 
a terrible struggle, which would jirobably have ended in the massacre of 
tliem all, had not the death of the native chief struck terror into his sub- 
jects' hearts. As the dusky leader fell with a ball lodged in his brain, his 
warriors toolv to fiight, and the Englisli, bleeding from their wounds, made 
the best of their way back to their vessels, 



204 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Back again at last at Xootka Sound, fresh difficulties arose. The men. so 
loyal at tirst. showed signs of mutiny, and the chief offenders were sent on 
shore, where, falling into the hands of native chiefs, they endured much 
hardship, from which they were finally rescued by Meares. who received 
them back into his service, after repeated ju-ofessions of contrititm. 

As will be understood, so much time had been lost in the detour to the 
south, that little was effected in the way of actual discovery on this second 
trip. Forts were, however, erected at several points on the shores of >»ootka 
Sound, and a cargo of great value was taken back by Meares to his em- 
ployers — two facts which paved the way for the fftting out of an important 
expedition, consisting of several vessels, under the great Vancouver, who 
added more than any of his predecessors to our scientific knowledge of the 
north-western shores of America. 

l>e Fuca, Meares, and others of lesser note, had, throughout their exami- 
nation of the new districts discovered by them, divided their attention be- 
tween trade and geograjihical exploration. Vancouver appears to us to 
have been a man of a different and more intellectual stamp ; and though he 
can scarcely be said to have been the tirst to see the important island named 
after him, as it can not have escaped the observation of any marinei-s anchor- 
ing in Nootka Sound, he undoubtedly revealed the fact of its complete sep- 
aration from the mainland, and won recognition for its great natural resources 
and its commanding geographical position. 

Between the return home of Meares and the starting of Vancouver, dis- 
putes had arisen between the English and Sjninish, as to which were the 
true owners of the lands from whence came the treasures brought home by 
the now numerous traders and whalers who frequented the Northern Pacific 
waters. These disputes were finally adjusted by the acceptance by the 
Spanish Government of Cape Mendocino (N. lat. 40° 26') as the most north- 
erly limit of its jurisdiction in the New World. As a result, A'ancouver s 
Avork was limited to the examination of the coast above that boundary ; 
and with the understanding that he should not encroach below it, he started 
from England on his grand voyage on the loth December, 1700. arriving off 
the coast of America, in X. lat. 37° 55', about the 15th April of the ensuing 
year. 

True to his instructions, Vancouver attempted no exploration of New 
Albicn until he had passed Cape Mendocino, beyond which, however, he 
ke]>t as cU)se as possible inshore, noting the position of every prominent 



Heroes of American Discovery. 205 

feature of the const, and seeking in vain for any liarbor in which to anchor 
his vessels. Past Ca^^e IShmco (^N. hit. 42° 51'), to which the leader gave 
the name of Orford, in honor of the English nobleman bearing that title, 
Cape Disappointment (X. hit. 46° 19',) and many another now well-known 
promontory, the little tieet slowly sailed, until, on the last day of April, the 
Straits of De Fuca were entered, and those discoveries began which opened 
a new era in our geograx^hical knowledge of Xorth-west America. 

Entering the straits once supposed to lead direct into the Arctic Ocean, 
and carefully observing every peculiaritj', alike of the shores of the long- 
narrow island on the left and of the mainland on the right, our hero success- 
fully navigated the Gulf of Georgia, crossed the oOth juirallelof north lati- 
tude, and early in the summer of 1792, discovered the ox)en sea-way leading- 
back into the Pacitic, to which he gave the name of Queen Charlotte's Sound. 

The erroneous opinion still held by many, that the Straits of De Fuca 
were identical with tlie long- sought Gulf of Anian, and led direct to the 
Arctic Ocean, was now linally dispelled ; and, resuming his survey of the 
Pacitic seaboard beyond the most northerly limit of Vancouver's Island, the 
explorer next turned his attention to the labyrinth of sounds, inlets, and 
islands known as Prince of Wales, Duke of York, Admiralty, etc., the in- 
tricate windings af which had so long baffled the captains of trading and 
lishing vessels. 

Before the close of the summer, the mouth of the supposed river, known 
as Cook's, tlowing from Alaska into the Pacitic a little above the OOtli paral- 
lel of north latitude, was reached, and, sailing up, Vancouver ascertained it 
to be a close sound, thus solving a second of the problems of this hyperbor- 
ean region, and linally proving the non-existence of any passage butBehring 
Straits from the Pacific to the Arctic Oceans. Cook's River, henceforth 
known to be an inlet only, though it retains its first misleading title in many 
modern atlases, was the most northerly limit of this great voyage of discov- 
ery ; and the autumn of 1792 found Vancouver's battered little fleet entering 
the mouth of the Columbia River, which had been so named a few months 
before, after his own vessel, by a certain Captain Gray of Boston, who has 
been erroneously supj>osed to have been the first to discover it. 

A thorough examination of this fine harbor, the only one of real import- 
ance between that of San Francisco on the south and Port Discovery on the 
north, completed Vancouver's explorations on this last trip to the West. 
He returned to England before the winter set in ; and though his account of 



2o6 Heroes of America 71 Discovery. 

his work was received with much hostih: criticism, every point hiid down by 
him has been veritied by hiter travelers. 

The imjiortant work done by Behring, Cook, Meures, and Vancouver was 
greatly siii)plemented by minor heroes of various nationalities, including 
Kobert Gray of Boston ; the Spaniaids, Etevan Martinez and Uonzalo Ilaro, 
sent from Mexico to look after the interests of their Government in the 
North-west, who explored Prince William Sound ; Josej^h Billings, from 
England, who touched at the Aleutian Islands ; and numerous French, 
English, and Russian captains. Their accounts of their explorations were 
not, however, in any sense original revelations, and we pass from them to 
the men Avho took up the work of the early French coureitrs dc hois and 
missionaries, pushing their surveys westward from Hudson's Bay, until 
they spanned the hitherto unknown gulf between the last inland outposts 
of their predecessors and the Pacitic seaboard. 

It was the failure of Baffin, Davis, and other early heroes of Arctic dis- 
covery to lind the clew to the long-coveted secret of the vast labyrinth of 
straits, inlets, etc., between Greenland and the north-eastern shores of 
America, which first directed the attention of the thinkers of Europe to 
Hudson's Bay as a possible jmssage to the Pacillc. As in Canada and else- 
where in America, however, scientific exploration, for its own sake, soon 
retired before the j^ioneers of commerce and settlement, making it next to 
impossible for the geographical student to trace the thin line of discovery 
with any certainty. 

Strictly speaking, the work of the travelers who paved the way for the 
foundation of the great Htidson's Bay Company, destined to be so formida- 
ble a rival to the French coureurs de bois, belongs to Arctic history ; but, 
in the early days of which we are now writing, those whose main object was 
the discovery of the North-west Passage, often turned aside from it either 
from necessity or curiosity, and in the parentheses, so to speak, of their 
voyages, penetrated below the GOth j)arallel, which we have taken as our 
most northerly limit. Notal)ly was this the case with the bold mariner, 
Luke Fox, of London, who, in IG'.M), obtained from Charles I. the command 
of a pinnace of eighty tons, manned by twenty men, with permission to 
cruise about Hudson's Bay until he found a northei-n passage out of it. 

Fox's pinnace entered Hudsim's Straits early in Jtme, 1G31, and, eagerly 
steering his way among the numerous obstacles with which they are always 
encumbered, he entered the bay itself in safety, sailed across it in a north- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 207 

Westerly direction, and readied the narrow passage known as the Welcome 
between its eastern sliores and Southampton Island. Here, for some un- 
known reason, he turned southward, and, after an exciting cruise along the 
coasts of the great bay, he came to the mouth of its greatest feeder, the 
Nelson, in N. lat. 66° 35'. Convinced that no passage to the northern ocean 
was to be found so far south, and ignorant how near he had been to it when 
he changed his course at the outlet of the Welcome, he now struck across 
the bay in a north-westerly direction, till he came to the most southerly 
point of Southampton Island, called Carey's Swan's Nest. 

So much time had been wasted in the detour southward, which has won 
for Fox a mention in our present volume, that he could now only advance a 
short distance along the channel bearing his name, between the east of 
Southampton Island and the western boundaries of the bay. Compelled to 
return to England without having accomplished much, he learned a little 
later, somewhat to his disgust, that his discoveries in the south of the bay 
had been continued by his rival. Captain James. James had met him at the 
mouth of the Welcome, in a little vessel fitted out by the merchants of 
Bristol, with the same end in view as Fox had — the linding of a passage to 
the East by way of Hudson's Bay. 

James, told by Fox that he was quite sure not to succeed in his quest, had 
been driven, after this far from cheering meeting, to steer for the south in 
consequence of his inability to cope with the huge masses of ice which were 
now beginning to fill the northern half of the bay, and arriving at what is 
now known as Charlton's Island, in N. lat. b'^° 5', W. long. 80° 15', he de- 
termined to winter there. 

Terrible sufferings were now endured, but through them all James and his 
men kept up their courage, preparing, in face of every difficulty, for start- 
ing on the return voyage early in the following year. The battered vessel 
was refitted ; the southern shores alike of the island and of the bay, were 
carefully examined ; and when home was at last reached by the survivors of 
the party, the reports given by them, though not exactly encouraging to the 
general public, were such as to embolden a few enterprising spirits to see 
what could be done in the same direction. 

A few years after the return of James to England, a Frenchman named 
Grosseliez made a journey of discovery from Canada, and, after a successful 
cruise up the western shores of Hudson's Bay, landed in Nelson's River. 
Here, to his intense astonishment, he found a little settlement of white men, 



2o8 Heroes of American Discovery. 

who liad made their way thither from Boston, and were struggling, in spite 
of tlie rigorous climate, scarcity of food, etc., to gain a permanent footing in 
the country. Leaving these unexpected rivals to tight out their battles as 
best they could, Grosseliez completed his own survey of the surrounding 
districts, and hastened with it to France, hoping to gain the pati'onage of 
the French monarch for an emigration scheme of his own. He entirely 
failed in this purpose, but his pertinacity won for him the notice of Mr. Mon- 
tague, at that time English ambassador at Paris, who gave him a letter of 
recommendation to Prince Rujpert, then, after many vicissitudes, in the 
very zenith of his prosperity. 

Though at this time engaged in the eager prosecution of the newly-dis- 
covered art of mezzotint engraving, which owed so much of its perfection to 
him, Prince Rupert at once turned his attention to the geographical prob- 
lem laid before him by Grosseliez. The desirabilitj" of securing to England 
the monopoly of the fur-trade of the North, A\itli the possibility of winning 
a new water highway to the North through the as yet unexplored ice-blocked 
channels of the Great Bay, or to the Pacific through some inland passage 
still to be discovered, was recognized at once. Prince Rupert obtained the 
consent of his cousin, Charles II., to the sending out of a pioneering expe- 
dition under Captains Zachariah Gillam and Grosseliez ; and in the summer 
of 1668, their little vessel entered Hudson's Straits. 

This time the eastern shores of the bay were explored, and a little river 
flowing into the south-eastern extremity from Lake Mistassinie was discov- 
ered, to which the name of Rupert was at once given. A fort was erected 
at its mouth, and the adventurers returned home with a report that lands 
rich in furs stretched away as far as the eye could reach, on the east as well 
as on the west of Hudson's Bay. 

Encouraged by the result of this preliminary experiment, Prince Rupert 
now obtained from Charles a charter, conferring on himself and nine asso- 
ciates absolute proprietorship, subordinate sovereignty, and exclusive traflTic 
in a territory of undefined extent, embracing, however, all the regions dis- 
covered or to be discovered within Hudson's Straits, and all lands from 
which rivers flowed into Hudson's Bay, saving only such as were already in 
the possession of any Christian State or prince. 

Now, as we know, the French, who claimed all lands from Canada to the 
Pacific seaboard on the west, and to the Arctic circle on the north, had al- 
ready penetrated to the shores of Hudson's Bay, and up the Saskatchewan 



Heroes of American Discovery. 2O9 

to the Rocky Mountains. From the first, therefore, the new corporation, 
known as the Hudson's Bay Company, found itself face to face with a for- 
midable rival, and, to the great disapi>ointment of its founders, the men 
who were sent out to develop the resources of the newly-obtained territories 
show^ed themselves altogether unworthy of the trust reposed in them. A 
) >risk trade was carried on with the Canadians in the ordinary necessaries of 
life, but there was a total absence alike of mercantile enterprise and geo- 
graphical zeal. 

Not until 1721, some years after the claims of France to Canada had been 
finally abandoned, in fulfillment of the conditions of the Treaty of Utrecht, 
was any real effort at exploration made. At that date, however, a certain 
John Knight, governor of one of the forts of the Company, heard from some 
natives of a rich copper-mine in the north, and begged his superiors to fit 
out an expedition, with him as its leader, for the discovery alike of the 
mine and the Straits of Anian. It was now the turn of the Company itself 
to show lukewarmness in the good cause. Prince Rupert, who had been 
the very mainspring of the corporation, had long been dead ; his successors 
did not care to risk their capital in any scheme of which the success was not 
fully secured. 

"But," urged Knight, " the charter by virtue of which you exist made 
the search for a north-west passage, and one to the Pacific from the East, 
absolutely compulsory ; if you decline to allow me to make such search, I 
will appeal to the King, who will doubtless withdraw his letters patent if 
you neglect their conditions." 

Unable to shake the position taken up by their importunate servant, the 
Hudson's Bay Company at last roused itself from its lethargy, and fitted 
out two vessels, which they placed under the naval direction of Captains 
Barlow and Vaughan, who were, however, to consult Knight as to their 
route. 

Full of eager delight at this, as he thought, complete realization of his 
hopes, poor Knight started on his voyage ; but of that voyage no record has 
ever been obtained. A year passed by, and there came no message to his 
employers ; two years, and still not a word from him. Search expeditions 
were now sent out, but they were either unskillfully or negligently con- 
ducted, and not until forty long years had gone by was the sad truth 
revealed. 

In 1767, two whaling vessels, cruising about the now well-known passage 



2IO Hcrot's of Amrrican DiscovifV. 

of tIio AVeloome. came to the eiuraiu-e of a harbor never before noticed, and. 
enteriuiT it. their captains and crewj; were astonished to tind iis shoivs stivwn 
with guns, anchoi-s, and other Eiiixipean ivlics. When they huideii to ex- 
amine this phenomenon, furtlier evidence of the phice having been the scene 
of a givat catastrophe was found in the ruins of a house, and a little hiter 
in the discovery of the remains of ships under water. There could be little 
doubt now that Knight and all the members of his expedition had met their 
death at the very commencement of their journey ; and. two yeai-s later, the 
explorer Hearne met some natives near the AVelcome. wlio told him how, 
long yeai-s before, some w hite men like himself had come in two ships, and, 
landing, put together a wonderful house, the pieces of which they had 
brought with them. These white men. added the Esquimaux, soon became 
sick, and though they went on w orking all the same, most of them died. In 
the winter, the survivoi-s were glad to buy train-oil. blubber, and seal- 
liesh. as all their own provisions failed them ; and some of them, who had 
been a long time without food, died of eating too greeilily of the strange 
diet supplied to them. In the following spring, but live ivmained alive, 
and these died one by one, the last survivor falling over the last but one in 
a vain attempt to dig his gr-ave. 

As may be supposed, the news of this awful catastrophe, of which the 
woi*st liorroi^ were probably even then unknown, did not encourage further 
efforts on the desolate northern shores of Hudson's Bay. Before the Siui 
fate of Knight and his comrades was discovered, however, several attempts 
weiv made at the navig-ation of the various rivers tiowing fi-om the west 
into the vast iidand sea, w ith a view to ascertaining if any of them led to 
the Pacitic Ocean. In 17;^7, a Captain Middleton entei-ed the mouth of 
Churchill River ^^X. lat ,'iO\ W. long. HO'^^. spent the winter on its shores, 
and in the ensuing spring s;tileil thixnigh the AVelcome. up the AVager Sound, 
o^vning on to it on the west, and thence by way of the northern inlet of the 
Welcome, into Fox's Channel, thus completing the ciivuit of the bay all 
but accomplished by his predecessoi's. Fox and .lames. 

Convinced that no passage from Hudson's Bay existed on the west, Mid- 
dleton returned to England to announce that conviction, but all his asser- 
tions were met with scorn ; and. a few years later, yet another lieet, this 
time under the command of Captains Moore and Smith, started in the vain 
quest. Hudson's Straits were enteivd in July, 1740. and the northern half 
of the bay being found inipass;ible from ice, it was ivsolveil to winter at the 



Heroes of A VIC ri can Discovery. 



Ill 



moutlj of Nolson\s Uiver (N. ln(. AC)'' .T)', W.'long 95°), and start on tlie ox- 
l)l()riiiij; oxpeclitioii (\irly in the ciisiiiiii;- yonr. 

'Phis progiuiiinio was carritMl on I, and in spiti^ of the inlouse cold, the 
l>arly cscMpiHl many of Iho liorrors iisunlly attendant ujton it to Kuropeans, 
by foHowino- dio advice of some friendly Kscpiimanx, a\ ho gave them many 
Idnts as to the best way to avoid them. The summer of the following year 
found tlie expedition moving up the bay, and a thorough examinaticm of 
the Wager Sound, proving it to be a clos(> one, was made ; but, alas! this 




SLEDGE-DRIVINO. 

was the only result of what had np]>eared likely to be one of the most suc- 
cessful expeditions yet fitted out. Having discovered that no passage to the 
Pacific was to be found by way of the Nelson or the Wager, Moore and 
Smith came to the conclusion that no passage existed at all, and returned to 
England to announce that their work was done. That tliey were received 
with what we may really call a yell of execration is a matter of little sur- 
prise, but that expression of public scorn was followed by no renewed 
attemi)t in the same direction. 



212 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Knight, as we know, had disappeared, and the secret of his fate, antici- 
pated by ns, was still unknown. Middleton, Moore, and Smith had accom- 
plished nothing. Surely it was time to make a change of tactics, and witli 
some such feeling the heads of the Company resolved to give up the question 
of a water passage to the West for a time, and see what could be accom- 
plished by land. Not until 1760, however, two years after the discovery of 
the relies of Knight's expedition, was any thing definite attempted, and by 
that date the Hudson's Bay Company had been to some degree supplanted 
by that known as the North-west, which consisted of a number of British 
merchants who, without charter, privileges, or public support, had been 
quietly, though energetically, making good their footing in the great North- 
west. 

Our readers will remember all that we have told them of the French 
coureurs des hois, and of their rapid advance westward, accompanied by 
the Jesuit missionaries, who did so much to check their abuses. This ad- 
vance at one time seemed likely to prevent that of any other Europeans ; 
but the cession of Canada to England in 1703, a cession fraught with politi- 
cal consequences of such vital importance to the whole civilized world, shook 
the power of the French to its foundation. 

A royal proclamation was issued, organizing Canada under English laws ; 
and no longer could the lawless proceedings of the coureurs dr-s bois be tol- 
erated. Henceforth the lakes and rivers would miss the skin-laden canoes 
of the half-savage traders ; no more should the remote forests echo with 
their shouts of joy as they brought down their prey, or the solemn wastes of 
snow-clad plains be desecrated by their wild revels. 

The change — as all great changes generally are — was gradual. The i>io- 
neers of the new order of things often surprised some little group of dusky 
half-caste children, with eager eyes and vivacious ways of their French 
fathers contrasting strangely with the shrinking timidity inherited from 
their savage mothers. Now and then, too. bloody struggles took x^lace be- 
tween the hunters of the rival nations ; and tlie natives, delighted to see the 
white men devouring each other, began those treacherous assaults, in which 
they have ever j^-oved themselves adepts, which culminated in the massacres 
of Detroit and Michilimackinac. 

This terrible transition stage, where such numerous rivals were contending 
for the monopoly of the fur-trade of the great North-west, produced, as 
transition stages so often do, many a bold spirit eager to win honor by facing 



I 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



213 



the exceptional difficulties of the time. First one and then another hero 
came forward to offer his services to the Hudson's Bay Company for new ex- 
peditions ; first one and then another member of its infant rival accomplished 
some traveling-feat hitherto looked upon as impossible. Some few among 
these, such as Plearne of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Mackenzie of the 




AN ESQUIMAUX DWELLING. 

North-west Company, worked below as well as above the 60th parallel of 
north latitude, and must therefore be noticed here. 

Hearne, the first of this brilliant pair of adventurers to start, left the west- 
ern shores of Hudson's Bay in November, 1709, and accompanied by two 
Europeans and a iiumber of Indian guides, struck across country in a north- 



2 14 Heroes of American Discozery, 

erly direction, with the head-watei"s of the Coppermine Kiver, so named 
after the mine supposed to exist in its vicinity, as his goal. Again and 
airain compelled to retmce his steps to the advanced forts of his employei-s, 
on account of the scarcity of provisions and the extreme cold, onr hero did 
not enter the great northern plain until l^ecember. 1770. Across it he was 
now, however, conducted in safety by an. Indian guide, named Matonnabbe, 
who was accompanied by his eight squaws, on whom the chief burden of pi\>- 
viding for the comfort of the party Avas thrown. 

So well did these poor women fultill their mission, turning to account 
every scrap of food which came in their way, that Hearne ivached in safety 
the most southerly of the great hyperborean series of frozen lakes. Naming 
the smaller ones Cossed, Snow-bini, Pike, Peshew, and Cagead, he came in 
due course to the more important Athabasca, just below the boundary line 
of the 00th parallel of north latitude, and beyond that agtiin to the Givat 
Slave Lake, situated between N. lat. W and 03'', and surrounded on every 
side by rugged wooded heights, pivsenting ti pleasing contrast to the white 
stretches of snow and ice extending on every side beyond. 

These heights, which at iii*st aj^peared inaccessible, wei-e yet travelled by 
a rough and winding path used by the Indians in their wild hunting expe- 
ditions, and. following his dusky guides, Ilearne succeeded in scaling them 
and gaining the ]>lain beyond. Another march of short dumtion bixnight 
him to the source of the Coppermine Kiver. which rises near the Great Bear 
Liike, a tributary of the Mackenzie, the discovery of which was ivserved to 
Hearne' s rival and successor, whose name it bears. 

Instead of the wide river navig-able for lai"ge vessels in the summer, and 
with mines hiding vast stores of mineral wealth within easy reach. Iloarne 
found the Coppermine to be an unimportant stream tlowing through a bar- 
ren and desolate country. Disappointed and disgusted, he yet ivsolveil to 
follow it to its mouth, and was proceeding on his journey with doggtxl ivso- 
lutiou. when the monotony of the daily struggle with the dithculties pre- 
sented by nature was broken by a struggle between his Indian guides and 
some Esquimaux, resulting in the massacre of the latter. In vain did our 
hero plead for n\ercy for the inotfensive dwellei-s on the coast. The inhind 
races of North America entertain for their Arctic neighboi-s a hatred and 
conte!U]^t which must be witnessed to be ivalized : and face to face witli 
Esquimaux, all private quarrels aiv merged in an eager desire for the bUnnl 
of the common enemv. 



Heroes of American Discovery 



->5 



T>is<;usted at having burdened himself with companions \\ lu> of eourse 
rendertnl impossibU> any attempt at studying the ways of tlio new type of 




IN IIIK AlK'TU' SK.VS. 



Iiuniau nauiiv with whicli lie was now brought in oontaet, Uearne l)ursued 
his way northward, and before the close of the summer he was jv warded for 



2 1 6 Heroes of American Discovery. 

his perseverance by reaching the mouth of the Coppermine River, and stand- 
ing on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, For the first time the eyes of a Euro- 
pean rested upon that portion of the universal sea surrounding the North Pole 
which washes the northern coast of America ; for the first time the white man 
realized the existence of yet another ocean — an ocean which must hence- 
forth replace the fabulous unbroken masses of land figuring on all maps be- 
tween the most northerly limit reached by explorers and the North Pole. 

Before this great and unexpected revelation, throwing a flood of new light 
on the geography of North America, and with it of the whole world, all 
minor details sank into insignificance. Hearne had proved beyond a doubt 
that the Strait of Anian, if such a strait there were, had its eastern outlet, 
if any, in the Icy Sea ; he had ascertained that the American continent 
stretched away hundreds of miles beyond what had hitherto been accepted 
as its western limits ; he had seen that the extreme North was inhabited by 
a race difi'ering essentially from all their southern neighbors ; he had noticed 
the trace of the existence of thousands of Avhales, seals, and other valuable 
denizens of the deep ; but what was all this, in Hearne' s estimation, com- 
pared to the unvarnished fact of the existence of a new ocean ! 

Hastening back to Hudson's Bay with the great news, Hearne saw the 
copper-mine of which Indian tradition had told so much. It was a poor, 
exhausted mine, not likely to yield the smallest profit to the Company ; but 
what of that ? The Arctic Ocean lay beyond it ! Following a somewhat 
more westerly course than on his northern journey, Hearne entered level 
districts abounding in game ; but what of that ? The Arctic Ocean washed 
the desolate shores above the fur-yielding plains ! A fair young Indian 
woman, who had escaped from some Athapescow Avarriors after the murder 
of her whole family, was found dwelling alone in a little hut, supporting 
herself by hunting deer and snaring rabbits. Hearne' s followers Avrestled 
for the possession of the young exile as a wife, and she was carried off by 
the victor ; but this strange and significant scene could scarcely interest our 
hero now. The Arctic Ocean was awaiting its explorers — alas ! also its vic- 
tims — and the ways of the natives, who had so little valued the great fact 
of its existence, were of small account. 

Roused from its lethargy at last by the report brought home by its gallant 
employe, the Hudson's Bay Com])any now did all in its i>ower to encourage 
further research, and to its efforts were due the sending forth of Franklin 
on his first great voyage, which ushered in a new era of Arctic exploration. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 217 

Before either Franklin, of Arctic renoAvn, or Mackenzie, second only in 
fame as an inland explorer to Hearne, was ready to start, however, much 
good work was done by private adventurers, especially by Finlay, Currie, 
Fi-obislier, and Pond, who, between 1763 and 1778, penetrated to the banks 
of the Saskatchewan and Churchill Elvers, and to the shores of Athabasca 
Lake, making intimate acquaintance with the Hare and other Indian tribes, 
and paving the way for the voyages on the Mackenzie, Peace, and Slave 
Rivers, which were among the most noteworthy feats of the new claimant 
for the possession of the fur-yielding districts of the extreme North- west. 

Alexander Mackenzie, the hero of these important trips, was bred a clerk 
in the service of the North-west Company, and, before starting on his voy- 
age as a geographical explorer, properly so called, had served a long ap- 
prenticeship at the advanced station of Fort Chij^ewyan, on the Athapes- 
cow Lake, whence he made several overland excursions in different di- 
rections. 

On the 3d June, 1789, our hero embarked in a native canoe on the Slave 
liiver, and following its course, then unimpeded by ice, in a northerly di- 
rection, he arrived on the 9th of the same month at the Slave Lake. Skirt- 
ing along its shores in a westerly direction, he presently discovered the im- 
portant river bearing his name, which has since been found to be identical 
with the Athabasca, rising in the Rocky Mountains near Mount Brown, and 
also with the Slave, the combined waters of the two streams flowing, after 
their junction, to the Arctic Ocean in Mackenzie Bay, N. lat. 70", W. 
long. 136°. 

Anxious to trace the course of the Mackenzie, the explorer was about to 
proceed along it in his canoe, when he was told by some wandering Indians 
that certain death would be the result, for the bed of the stream was haunted 
by huge monsters, who would devour all who came in their way. Moreover, 
it would take many years to reach the salt water. The white man had bet- 
ter return the way he came. In any case, he could hope for no help from 
the redskins. 

Though these terrible prophecies did not affect Mackenzie himself, they 
paralyzed his guides, who declared they would go no further ; and after 
trying alike persuasion and force, the Europeans determined to do the best 
they could alone. They appear to have penetrated as far north as the Great 
Bear Lake, but here, for some reason of which we find no explanation in 
Mackenzie's Journal, the canoe was turned southward, and the voyage back 



2l8 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



to the Slave Lake resumed. "My people," says Mackenzie, "could not 
refrain from some expressions of real concern that they were obliged to re- 
turn without reaching the sea ; " but he apjiarently made no great effort to 
gratify them. 
Back again to Fort Chipewyan, Mackenzie lost no time in preparing for a 




Mackenzie's first view of the pacific ocean. 

second journey of discovery. Embarking on the Peace River, a tributary 
of the Slave or Athabasca, he followed its course in a south-westerly direc- 
tion, till he reached the first spurs of the snow-clad Rocky ]\fountains, 
whence issued the river under examination. Here the canoe was, of neces- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 219 

sity, abandoned, and an arduous climb began, resulting, however, in the suc- 
cessful scaling of the rugged ridge, and the safe arrival at a village on its 
western side, where the weary travelers were regaled with salmon, a fish 
never before met with on their travels in North America. 

The inhabitants of this remote home in the wilderness were of a far more 
civilized appearance than the Indians of the East ; and as the sea was ap- 
proached by the explorers, they passed through settlements numbering 
hundreds of well-built houses, peopled by various tribes belonging to the 
southern branches of the great hyperborean group. Members of the Sican- 
nis and other Rocky Mountain families were met with, who, one and all, 
showed courtesy to the white strangers, though they were Jealous of any 
interference with their fishing or hunting ; and as the western coast was 
approached, the active and intelligent Thinkleets, chiefly of the Stikeen and 
Tungass tribes, excited the admiration of their visitors by their ingenuity in 
the coKfitruction of domestic and other implements, and their skill in paint- 
ing and carving. 

The shores of the North Pacific Ocean were finally reached in north lati- 
tude 52° 20' 48". The whole of the continent of British America had for 
the first time been traversed ; its vast breadth had been proved beyond a 
doubt ; and the connecting link between the discoveries on the western 
coast and those from the East, whether from Hudson's Bay, New England, 
or the Southern States, was added at last. Yet in Mackenzie's account of 
his work he scarcely notes the first sight of the sea ; we have searched in 
vain for any details of his sojourn on its shores. Having done what he 
came to do, he turned back, and retraced his steps, winding up the narative 
of his adventures with this simple and unostentatious sentence : — "Afte: 
an absence of eleven months I arrived at Fort Chipewyan, where I remained 
for the purposes of trade during the succeeding winter." 



CHAPTER XII. 

ASTORIA AND ITS FOUNDERS. 

BY the beiiiiminp: of the 10th oeiitnrv, or, to be more strictly accurate, 
before the year 1810, a general notion had been obtained of the extent, 
form, and main physical features of North America. The journeys of Pike, 
Lewis and Chirke in the southern half of the vast continent, with those 
of Hearne and Mackenzie from Hudson's Bay, were now followed up 
by a series of exx^nlitions, working either under the orders or -with the 
sanction of the American Government, by wliicli the regions soutli of the 
Missouri, those bordering on the Upper Mississij^jii, and the fertile provinces 
now known as British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, were thoroughly 
explored. 

The first man to take up the work begun by the heroes we have been no- 
ticing was John Jacob Astor, who, after long negotiations with the various 
companies struggling for the monojioly of the fur-trade of the North, suc- 
ceeded in founding yet another association, under the name of the Pacitie 
Fur Couipany. This new confederation, having won the co-operation of 
many of the best agents of its rivals, found itself in a position to compete 
with them on more than equal terms, and, as early as 1810, a thoroughly 
well-organized expedition, divided into two j)arts — one going by land, the 
other by sea — started for the mouth of the Columbia, where it was proposed 
to erect a fort as the head-quarters of tlit^ new trade to be opened. 

After a successful voyage from Montreal ria the Sandwich Islands, the 
TotKjuin, bearing the advanced guard of traders and emigrants, including 
Mr. M'Dougal, who represented Mr. Astor, cast anchor off the mouth of the 
Columbia. Here a landing was at once effected, and M'Pougal and his 
chief assistant, a man named Stuart, were hosi>itably entertained by the 
Chinooks, wliose chief aided them in selecting a suitable place for the found- 
ation of their fort, and showed no jealousy of their wish to settle near him. 

Tlie town now known as Astoria (^N. lat, W 11', W. long. 123^ 42 ) was 



Heroes of American Discovery. 221 

quickly built ; a factory soon rose beside it ; the natives came in with their 
furs for sale ; and all seemed likely to go so well, that the Toiiquin was 
allowed to start on a trading trip up the coast, leaving but a few settlers to 
await the arrival of the land party. No sooner was the vessel out of reach, 
however, than rumors began to be circulated of a conspiracy among the 
neighboring tribes to massacre all the white men ; and while preparations 
were being made to meet this unexpected danger, some wandering Indians 
from the Straits of Juan de Fuca brought tidings that the Tonquin had been 
lost with all on board. The truth of this melancholy event was soon con- 
lirmed by members of yet another tribe, and gradually the whole story 
leaked out. 

The Tonquin had fallen a victim, not to the usual perils of the deep, but 
to a quarrel between Thorn, its captain, and some natives of Vancouver's 
Island. Steering to the north, with an Indian named Samazee as interpre- 
ter in his proposed dealings with the natives. Thorn reached Vancouver's 
Island in safety, and cast anchor in the harbor of Neweetee, though Samazee 
warned him that the people about there were not to be trusted. On the fol- 
low^ing day the ship was boarded by a number of natives, including two 
sons of AVicanainsh, the chief of the country round Neweetee, and an old 
chief named Nookamis, who had long been accustomed to drive bargains 
with the English. 

Suspecting no evil. Captain Thorn prepared for a good day's business, 
and made what seemed to him fair offers for the finest of the sea-otter pel- 
tries brought by the redskins. Nookamis shook his head ; he must have 
double the i^rices quoted. His companions folloAved suit ; not a skin could 
poor Captain Thorn obtain. 

Surprised and disgusted at the turn affairs had taken, the English now 
tried new tactics. They took no further notice of the Indians, but paced up 
and down the deck with their hands in their pockets. Nookamis, however, 
looking upon all this as a mere maneuver to try his patience, continued to 
ply the captain with offers of otter-skins ; and finding that nothing he said 
had any effect, he began to jeer the white man for a stingy fellow. Thorn 
now lost his temper, and, turning upon his persecutor, he snatched the ot- 
ter-skins from him, flung them in his face, and kicked him down the ship's 
ladder. 

The rest of the natives were furious, and hurried after their spokesman, 
leaving the deck strewn with peltries. A little later, some of the whites 



221 Heroes of American Discovery. 

who had gone on shore returned to the vessel, and nrged the captain to 
weigh anclior, as tliey feared a. genei'al attack from the natives. In this ad- 
vice they were seconded by Saniazee, who declared that the vengeance for 
the insult offered to a chief would be terrible. But Thorn's blood w^as up. 
He declined to leave the coast ; and when further urged, replied by jjointing 
to his guns, as protection enough against savages. 

Early the next morning, when the crew of the Tonquin were still in their 
hammocks, a canoe full of Indians came alongside. Were these the prophe- 
sied avengers \ Surely not ! They were unarmed, and held up otter-skins 
in token of friendly intentions. They were allow^ed to climb on board, and 
so were a second jDarty of twenty, who arrived immediately afterw^ard. 

A brisk trade w^as now^ begun ; but as the officers turned over the skins 
offered to them, other canoes put off from the shore. The Tonquin was 
soon surrounded by them ; its single ladder was quickly crowded with 
dusky warriors, w ho, pouring upon the deck in a steady stream, also pro- 
duced skins, offering to trade w^itli the captain on his ow^n terms now, and 
implying, though not expressing, regret at the obstinacy of their represen- 
tatives the day before. The chief things the natives wanted instead of their 
costly peltries w^ere knives ; and with an almost foolhardy recklessness, 
Thorn allow^ed them to appropriate a large number, in spite of the repeated 
warnings of his officers and the interpreter that treachery was intended. 
The only precaution taken was the telling-off of sailors to weigh anchor and 
make sail, the captain imagining that this would not be noticed, and that, 
having obtained his cargo of peltries, he could escape before the Indians had 
time to carry out any evil designs. 

Never was a more terrible mistake made. The signal from the captain 
for the deck to be cleared was also that for the onslaught to be given. The 
knives just obtained, and the war-clubs already provided, were brandished 
on every side, and before they could defend themselves, many of the white 
men fell beneath the well-aimed blow^s. 

The ship's clerk was one of the first to fall, and among the next victims 
was a man named M'Kay, who was flung backward into one of the w^aiting 
canoes, and there hacked to pieces by the squaws, who were watching the 
affray with eager delight. Very brave w^as the defense made by Thorn him- 
self, and at one time he seemed likely to escape. He had fought his w-ay 
nearly to the cabin, where he had left his firearms, wdien loss of blood com- 
pelled him to lean for support upon the tiller -wheel. He was instantly 



Heroes of Afnerican Discovery, 223 

surrounded, flung upon the deck, and stabbed to death with his own 
knives. 

All but four of the crew shared the fate of the officers. These four, who 
had been aloft making sail when the conflict began, succeeded in reaching 
the cabin, where they made a hasty defense. The firearms, which now came 
into play, soon cleared the deck, and an hour after the fatal admission of 
the redskins on board, not a sign of them was to be seen. 

The interpreter, to whom we owe this narrative, had wisely taken no part 
in the struggle, and retired with the natives. He tells further how the night 
was passed on shore among them, and how, though they were still eager for 
further revenge, they were deterred from approaching the vessel by their 
dread of the firearms. Early the next morning, a canoe, bearing the inter- 
preter among others, ventured cautiously to paddle within hail. A man 
presently appeared on deck, and made signs to the redskins to come on 
board. They hesitated, but, curiosity prevailing over fear, several of them 
climbed up the ladder. They were allowed to wander about unmolested. 
The white man they had seen had disappeared ; and one by one other canoes 
crept from the shore, till, as on the day before, the sea was covered with 
them. 

The savages who had first arrived called to their comrades to come on, for 
there was no danger and plenty of plunder. They were obeyed by all, even 
by the hitherto cautious interpreter. Eagerly were the bales of merchan- 
dise now plundered ; wild were the gestures of delight at the strange articles 
found among them — But what was that % Was the ship moving, or what ? 
An instant's pause of expectation, and then the vessel blew up with a loud 
noise ; the air was darkened with the bodies of the unhappy savages which 
fell in every direction, torn to a thousand fragments. 

The interpreter again escaped as by a miracle. He was clinging to the 
main chains when the explosion took place, fell into the water, and swam to 
one of the canoes, in which he made his way back to the land, where crowds 
had already assembled, and met him with eager inquiries as to the cause of 
the terrible scene. He was still the center of an eager group when four 
white men were brought as prisoners into the village, who told how they had 
escaped from the Tonquin when Lewis, the man who had decoyed the na- 
tives on board, decided to blow up the ship. They had hoped to find their 
way to their comrades at Astoria, but they had been unable to get out of the 
bay ; their boat was cast on shore, and they were soon seized by natives. 



224 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Tliey were put to death with all the refinements of cruelty in which the 
Indians have ever been adepts ; and not, as we have seen, until the inter- 
preter managed to pay a visit to Astoria was the whole melancholy story 
known. 

If tlie position of the Astorians was painful when it was supposed that 
the absence of the Tonquin would not be long protracted, we can imagine 
what it became now. The savage tribes around them, encouraged by the 
first success of their brothers of the North, and enraged at the terrible ven- 
geance taken upon them, were more determined than ever to root out the 
hated wliite men from their land, and it appeared likely that they a\ ould 
accomplish their purpose, when M'Dougal hit upon a stratagem. 

A few years previously, smallpox had ravaged the coast north and south 
of the Columbia ; whole tribes had succumbed to it, and the mere mention 
of it was enough to cow the spirit of the most dauntless brave. None knew 
whence it came, but it was supposed to be sent by the Great Spirit to cor- 
rect his children for their sins, and many connected it with the first coming 
of the white man. 

M'Dougal, reminded by some trifling incident of the latter superstition, 
invited the leaders of the conspiracy against the infant colony to come and 
take council with him. They obeyed, wondering, doubtless, in their simple 
minds whether their designs had been discovered. When all were seated, 
and expectant silence reigned on every side, the white man stood in the 
midst and began his harangue. 

"Your countrymen have destroyed our vessel," he said, "and I am re- 
solved on vengeance. The white men among you are few in number, it is 
true, but they are mighty in medicine. See here," he went on, producing a 
small bottle ; " in this bottle I hold the smallpox safely corked up. I have 
but to draw the coik and let loose the pestilence, to sweep man, woman and 
child from the face of the earth." 

Great was the horror and alarm at this announcement. The chiefs, forget- 
ting their dignity, gathered round the white man, imx)loring him to stay his 
band ; and after affecting to be unmoved for some little time, M'Dougal at 
last declared that, so long as the white people were unmolested, the phial of 
wi'ath should be unoi)ened, but 

The remainder of the scene may be imagined. Eternal amity Avas finally 
sworn, and M'Dougal, henceforth to be known as the Great Smallpox Chief, 
was able to attend without int irruption to the internal aft'airs of the colon3^ 



He7'ocs of American Discovery. 225 

While the Astorians were thus struggling with their difficulties, the land 
party were worl^ing their way across the country to their assistance. At 
the head of this second expedition was William Hunt, with whom was asso- 
ciated Donald Mackenzie, both men of tact and experience in dealing with 
the Indians. 

The start was made early in July, 1810, from Montreal, which we have 
visited under so many different auspices, and, on the22d, Mac^kinaw, on the 
junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan, was reached. This town, lirst an 
Indian village and then a French trading })ost, was now the center of a nu- 
merous and mixed population. Here traders bound for Lake Superior, for 
the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Arkansas, or other rivers, met on their 
way to their several outlying posts. Here they returned laden with the 
spoils of the far West. 

A long halt wasitiade at Mackinaw to collect recruits, who were not (easily 
met with. It was no joke, urged the redskins, to travel with these white 
men ; they wanted you to go through wildernesses full of savage tribes, with 
whom they would have to tight, and if any of them escaped death at the 
hands of their fellow-countrymen, it would only be to starve in those deso- 
late tracts on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. Why should our 
white man be so anxious to reach the Salt Lake (the sea)? or why, if his 
anxiety was so very great, would he not give his poor brothers their pay in ad- 
vance, that the squaws and little ones at home might not pine away in hunger % 

Not until the 12th August was the actual start made, and even then, in- 
stead of being able to strike across country at once for the mouth of the 
Columbia, the expedition had to make a voyage down the Mississii)i)i to St. 
Louis, in order to settle certain difficulties, into which we need not enter 
here, with the numerous rival companies already alluded to. The starting 
point of so many expeditions was reached in September, and on the 21st 
November three canoes, bearing the new body of adventurers, embarked on 
the Missouri. Even now, progress was extremely slow. . Hunt was more 
than once compelled to return to St. Louis to settle disputes with his rivals ; 
and, as the boats crept cautiously along, rumors of a very discouraging 
character again and again reached the navigators. There was war among 
the native tribes, and a party of Sioux Indians were awaiting the arrival of 
the white men in the wilds of Nebraska, intending to massacre them all. 

At the mouth of the Nebraska, signs api)eared that the rumors of danger 
from savages were founded on facts. A frame of a skin canoe was found, 



226 Heroes of American Discovery. 

in which the warriors had evidently crossed the river, and at night the sky 
was red with the reflection of huge tires, showing that the prairies had been 
set on lire by the combatants. Ignoring ns much as possible all these terri- 
ble omens, Hunt, fresh from his last run back to St. Louis, carefully exam- 
ined the face of the country on either side of the Nebraska ; the naturalists 
of the party made their notes on the Hora and fauna of the new districts ; 
and on the 10th May, the village of Omaha, about eight hundred and thirty 
miles above the mouth of the Missouri, was reached in safety. 

Hospitably received by the little remnant of the once powerful Omaha 
tribe, who had been in the habit of considering themselves superior to all 
other created beings till the smallpox had swept half of them away, Hunt 
rested here awhile before commencing his great journey westward, which 
rivals in its terrors, and the courage with which they were met, some of the 
more famous African expeditions. 

At Omaha, the fame of the great chief Blackbird, who has figured in so 
many romances, still lived, and Hunt and his party were among the last 
white men to look ujjon the sacred mound beneath which his body reposes, 
with its ghastly trophies of scalps still displayed on its summit, suspended 
upon the staff of the hero's banner. The mound itself is still pointed out to 
the modern traveler, but the scalps, with so many other relics of the olden 
time, are gone. 

A little below the Great Bend of the Missouri, the first encounter took 
place with the Indians. A scout was seen galloping wildly to and fro on 
the ojjposite bank as the traders were at breakfast, and at once divining the 
meaning of his appearance, the canoes were brought out, and I'eady for all 
contingencies, the white men pulled boldly up the stream. Their suspense 
did not last long. An hour's row brought them suddenly face to face with 
the enemy. An island intervening had at first hidden them from sight, but, 
as the canoes shot past it, the banks beyond were revealed, crowded with 
warriors painted and decorated for battle. 

To advance appeared certain death, to retreat scarcely less perilous, as the 
savages could easily have followed the canoes down the river. To pull into 
mid-stream appeared at first a feasible compromise, but it was found that 
the current was too strong. A momentary pause, a few hurried questions 
of each other, and the white men resolved to fight. The boats were pulled to 
the shore opposite the Sioux ; the guns were examined, and fire was opened 
on the enemy. 



Heroes of A^nerican Discovery. ^27 

The effect was marvelous. As the rei)orts rang out, the dusky warriors 
faltered. It was soinctliing ik^w in Indian warfare for those, foi- whom the 
ambush liad been ])r(^paivd to ta,k(! tli(} initiative! The guns were now I'e- 
loaded, and the Canadians prepared to row across the Missoui'i, intending to 
lire again when within (^asy r;ing(! of tluur advoi'sai'ies. As tli(i wliih; inen 
rose to take aim, liowever, there was aery of "Stop !" fi'oni their interpre- 
ter. Tlie savages were holding their buffalo robes above their heads ; it was 
th(3ir signal of ad(;sire for ixuiee, and a bloody struggle might yet be averted. 

The guns were lowered ; the Canadians resumed tiieir seats. A do/en of 
the Sioux ajiproached the banks, lighted a fire, seated theiriselves about it, 
and, holding up the calumet made signs to the white men to land. Seeing that 
no alternative was left them between trusting to these fric^ndly ovei'tui'esand 
lighting against terrible odds. Hunt and the other kiadcis oL' the pai'ty ac- 
cei)ted the invitation, and were soon seated in the circle, smoking the pipe 
of peace in silence, as the inevitable preliminary of a treaty to be made. 

This opening (ceremony over, Hunt now (jxplaincul the real object of his 
journey to be trade, only trade which was to bring about great results for 
the natives ; and, as an earnest of his good intentions, In^ oi'(h!red a quantity 
of tobac(;o and corn to be brought from the boats and presented to the chi(d's 
as a free gift. 

Hunt's ready tact was reward* h1 as it deserved. The chief of the chiefs 
responded in his turn, saying tha-t lie had thought his white brothers were 
carrying arms to his enemies the Minatarees and Mandans, hence his hostil- 
ity. Convinced that no supplies of weapons were among the stores on the 
way to the fastnesses of the hostile tribes, he would offer no furthei' ojjpo- 
sition to the exi)edition, wliich had l)etter, however, keep to the other side 
of the river, as some hot-headjid young fellows among his followers were 
not to be trusted. 

So ended an incid<^nt that had threatened the very existence of tin; whole 
part}^ Hands were shaken all round — to shake hands was one of the first 
things taught by the white n\i.^^ to the red — and the traders re-embarked, 
taking care to follow the hint given by the now friendly (;hief. 

The next day, June 1st, th(^ Great Bend of the Missouri, first visited by 
Lewis and Clarke, was I'eached, a little beyond which the exx)lorei-s nicit a 
large party of Mandan and Minataree wari'iors, by whom they were, very 
much to their surprise, received with great enthusiasm, and carried off to 
the camp in the wilderness for the night. 



2 28 Ifirors of .liner icaii Discovery. 

V\\m\ to linvo won I'ritMids on ho\\\ sidos niiu>iiix tlio hostile Indians, Hunt 
now i^ushed rnpidly on np tlie Missouri, haltiniilit'iv anil there to trade with 
the natives, and on the 18th duly reached the most northerly point on his 
voyage, an Aiieai'a viUage, from which he proposed striking across country 
to the Bhu'k Mountains ow the west. 

Now began the most arduous part of this great journey. The vast jn-airies 
to be crossed were practically unknown to the white man, though they had 
probably been scoured by many an adventurous hunter, of whose exj^erience 
no record exists. On one side dwelt the Cheyenne, on the other the 
niackfeet Indians — at war with each other, as most Indian tribes appear to 
have been at this time. It was doubtful whether either or both would care 
for the wliite men to pass througli their territory. 

On the second tlay's march, some of the leader's anxieties were allayed by 
his cordial reception in a Cheyenne camp, the owners — cleanly, civil, decor- 
ous fellows — placing all they had at his disposal, and eagerly purchasing 
the trinkets otfered to them for sale. On the 0th August, the friendly 
i'heyennes were left behind and the Crow country entered, where a subtle 
dangvr awaited the travelers, of which Hunt received warning just in time. 

A sliort time previously, a man named Edward Hose had been engaged as 
interpreter for the passage of the Crow districts, he having been known to 
have spent many years among its wild inhabitants. That he had married a 
Crow woman, and identified himself with the interests of her tribe, was not 
known until afterward ; but on the eve of the entry into his adopted coun- 
try, Kose was overheard proposing to some of Hunt's followers that they 
should desert to the Crow camp with all the horses they could carry off, 
where he (Ixose) would join them, and show them how to entice other un- 
suspecting travelers from tlu^ right way to the coast. 

Sending for Kose to his own tent. Hunt, showing no knowledge of his 
nefarious schemes, informed him that he shouhl not require his services be- 
yond tlu' Crow country, but that, in consideration of his faithfulness, he 
should liave a horse, three beaver traps and other valuable accessories to a 
hunt(>r's equijunent, when the Canadians were safely through the passes of 
tlie Hlack ^^ountains. 

Surprised at this liberality, whicli made it really scarcely worth his while 
to ])lay traitor, K(>se resolved to undo what he had begun. A message was 
conveyed to his allies, the Crows, instructing them to treat his white friends 
courteouslv ; it was resolved in council bv the chieftains that no harm 



Heroes of American Discovery. 229 

should be done to the pale faces ; and Hunt, still showing no sign of knowl- 
edge of the by-i3lay, entered the mountain fastnesses without fear. 

The Black Hills, forming the dividing line between the waters of the 
Missouri and those of the Arkansas and Mississippi, were soon reached, and 
unappalled by the wild tales told of the genii, or thunder spirits, who would 
resent their intrusion, the Canadians endeavored to cross them. Tliey failed 
in doing so, and their guide attributed tlieir failure to the obstacles thrown 
in their way by the invisible " Lords of the Mountain." Of tlieir interfer- 
ence, however. Hunt has given no record, his account being siuiply that he 
had to turn back because of the physical peculiaiities of the mountains, 
their wild ravines and terrible precipices being simjily impassable to all but 
the black- tailed deer, and the strange ahsata or big horns haunting its lonely 
defiles. 

A considerable detour southward had to be made, and a path was finally 
found along a ridge dividing the tributary waters of the Yellowstone and 
Missouri Rivers, and on the 22nd August they met the first Crow warrior, 
who x>i'oved to belong to a large band returning from tlieir annual trading- 
trip to the Mnndan country. 

Rose was now sent on in advance, to hold a parley with his friends, and 
invite some of them to come to the Canadian camp. This many readily 
consented to do, and Hunt was agreeably surprised at the manly bearing of 
some of the young horsemen among his visitors, proving that, but for the 
timely warning received, it might have gone hardly with his party among 
them. Old and young, rich and poor among this mountain tribe were 
mounted on steeds of some description, and managed their horses with un- 
rivaled skill ; the very babies, too young to speak, were tied on small colts 
or ponies, and wielded their whips as if by instinct. 

Escorted by some two hundred equestrians, the dreaded passage of the 
Crow country was made, and the hunting-grounds of the Shoshones reached 
in safety. Rose and his dusky comrades were dismissed, and their places 
supplied by Shoshone trappers, who allowed the white men to sliai'e in their 
hunting expeditions, and led them to a commanding height, from w^hich 
they pointed out three snow-clad mountain peaks, beneath which, they 
said, rose the Columbia. 

Overjoyed at the thought of being almost within sight of the river at the 
mouth of which their comrades were awaiting them, the little band jn'essed 
on with renewed vigoi-, and on the 24th September they reached the banks 



230 Heroes of American Discovery. 

of a wide and rapid river — known as the Mad among the natives, on account 
of its wild and turbulent course — where a consultation was held as to 
whether it should or should not be followed. It was wide and deep enough 
to admit the passage of canoes, and it might possibly tlow into the Colum- 
bia. The Canadians one and all preferred traveling by water to '* scrambling 
over the backs of mountains," their trips up and down the St. Lawrence 
and across the Great Lakes having rendered them the most expert of oai*s- 
men. Already they saw themselves shooting from the Mad Kiver into the 
Columbia, and thence to Astoria. 

Embarkation was almost unanimously decided on — although one or two 
of the older members of the party hinted at the difficulty of return, if, after 
all, the Mad River did not How into the Columbia— and a fatal mistake 
would probably have been made, had not two Snake Indians from the West 
arrived in the nick of time, with the glad tidings that a trading post, 
situated on the upper branch of the Columbia, was not far off, and that 
from it the passage down to the sea was easy. 

The programme was changed at once. The encampment was broken up, 
the Mad River crossed, and a little later the post alluded to was reached. 
It was deserted, but its log huts afforded an admirable shelter during the 
construction of canoes for the voyage down the river ; and on the 18th of 
October all was ready for the last stage of the long journey. Fifteen canoes 
were launched on the Henry River, so called after the o^\Tier of the trading 
post, and a day's paddle brought the Canadians to its junction with their 
old friend the Mad River. 

The united streams now took the name of the Snake, and turned out. on 
examination, to be identical with the Lewis fork of the Columbia — a fact 
which greatly cheered the travelers, though their troubles were by no means 
yet at an end. The Snake was encumbei'ed with rocks, its bed was seldom 
level, and agtiin and again the canoes were nearly uj^set in the rapids. Xot 
a human creature was to be seen on the banks ; and as prairie succeeded 
pi-airie, and one wilderness of deserted mountains after another was passed, 
the spirits of the adventurei*s tlagged. 

On the *2v"^th October the climax of the difficulties was reached. The Snake 
River entered a *' terrific strait," its whole volume being conipi*essed into a 
space less than thirty feet in width, beyond which it Hung itself down a 
precipice, and continued its coui'se. raging and roaring in siu^h a manner 
that Hunt luimed the cataract the Lion Caldron, a title which it still beai-s. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 231 

In attempting to navigate tliis awful passage, one of the canoes was com- 
pletely destroyed, and one man drowned, while his comrades barely escaped 
with their lives. Further progress by water was evidt^ntly impossible. The 
hope of shooting rapidly down to the sea had again to be abandoned ; and, 
thoroughly disheartened, the travelers prepared to strike across country 
again, with a view to reaching the banks of the Columbia, lower down. 

Exploring parties were sent out in diilVrent directions to ascertain the 
best route ; all of the baggage which could possibly be spared was buried 
in caches ; and early in October the march was begun across a dry and 
trackless wilderness, tenanted only by a few wi-etched Shoshones, who fled 
at the approach of the white men. 

Toward the end of November a large encampment of Snakes was reached, 
where x^'ovisions and some really trustworthy infoiniation as to the route 
to the coast were obtained ; but it was bitterly cold, and tluvuilferings of the 
party between the Indian camp and the Colundna were extreme. Not until 
the 21st January did the long-sought waters of the great stream of the West 
come in sight, and the transport of the weary travelers at this happy con- 
clusion of their long wanderings may be imagined. 

The spot at which the Cohnubia. had at last been struck was a little below 
the junction of its two great branches, the Lewis and Clarke, in about N. 
lat. 40° 8', W. long. 118° 50'. Its banks were dotted with the miserable 
huts of a wretched horde of Indians called Akai-chies, who w^ore nothing 
but the undressed skins of animals, and lived by lishing, scudding up and 
down the Columbia in rude canoes of pine logs hollowed out by tire. 

From these Akai-chies Hunt received the first tidings of his comrades of 
the sea expedition ; but fortunately, perhaps, for him, the simple savages 
only knew of the presence of w'hite men at the mouth of their river, and 
could tell nothing of the disasters which had oveitaken them. Eager to 
join their friends, the traders now ])ushed on along tlu^ Columbia as rapidly 
as possible ; and at a little village somewhat further down, they heard not 
only of the massacre on board the Tonqidn, but of a plot for their own 
destruction. A party of braves said some wandering savages had arranged 
to attack the camp at night and carry off all the horses. With Hunt, to be 
forew\arned w^as to be forearmed, and the precautions taken prevented any 
second tragedy ; but it was with a sinking heart that he led his meu in the 
last stage of his awful journey. If the rumor of the massacre on the 7'on- 
quin were true, there was of course little hope that the few survivors of 



232 Heroes of American Discovery. 

Astoria had been able to hold their own against the natives, and the great 
expedition across the continent might perhaps end in the death of all c(»n- 
cerned. 

Early in February, after great sufferings from hunger and fatigue, canoes 
were at last obtained froui some Indians, and, eudiarking on the I^wis fork 
of the Columbia, the Canadians rapidly shot down the river of so nuuiy 
meuiories to Astoria, where they arrived in safety, haggard, half-starved, 
and in rags, after a journey which occupied nearly eighteen months. 

That the establishuient at Astoria never tiourished, as its founder hoped, 
is a well-known fact ; but the heroic efforts made by the members of the 
two expeditions to carry out their instrnctions did much to j^ave the way 
for the colonization and civilization of the beautiful states of Oregon and 
Washiugtou ; and the numerous journeys, undertaken by Hunt, Mackenzie, 
and others among the various chains of the Kocky Mountains, though their 
maiu object was trade, justly entitle them to I'ank as pioneers of geograph- 
ical discovery. To them, too, the United States Government, though 
scarcely our own, owes a debt of gratitude, their earlj^ occupation of Astoria 
haviug been a main i^nut in the American claiui to the Oregon territory, 
which at one time seemed likely to have become the jn-operty of Great 
Britain. 



CHAPTER XIII, 

THE MISSISSIPPI AND ITS CHIP:F AFFLUENTS. 

WHILE the expeditions lately described were in progress, efforts were 
being made by private individuals to supplement the work of Lewis, 
Clarke, and Pike. The lower course of the Red River was explored from 
Natchez by Mr. Dunbar and Dr. Hunter, and its upper waters were navi- 
gated by Dr. Sibley from Natchitoches, but nothing further was done 
toward determining the true sources of the Mississippi itself, until 1820, 
when Governor Cass, then in charge of Michigan territory, obtained per- 
mission to visit the highlands of Minnesota, and the great expedition under 
Long and James was sent by the United States Government to trace the 
course of its mightiest affluent, the Missouri. 

Cass and his companions, accompanied by an escort of thirty-eight men, 
left Detroit, the capital of Michigan, in the spring of 1820, and made their 
way along the coasts of Lakes Huron and Superior to the borders of Minne- 
sota, where they struck comparatively new ground, crossing the lovely 
basin of the St. Lawrence in a north-westerly direction, and reaching the 
shores of Sandy Lake in the middle of July. On the 17th of the same 
month, the canoes brought for the purpose were launched on the waters of 
the Mississippi, and the actual voyage of exploration began. 

The strong current of the mighty Father of "Waters rendered the ascent 
extremely arduous, and after a struggle, extending over one hundred and 
fifty miles, a series of impassable cataracts were reached, necessitating the 
carrying of the canoes and baggage for a considerable distance overland. 

Beyond these cataracts, the IVIississippi wound tlnough extensive and 
beautiful plains, haunted by deer, buffaloes, and other large game, till the 
junction of the Leech Lake branch was reached, where the scenery became 
more mountainous. Another forty-five miles brought the explorers to the 
vast expanse of clear water knoAvn as Lake Winnipeg, wliere the river takes 
a sudden bend of fifty miles to the west, expanding beyond into a lake 
larger than any that had yet been traversed. To this the name of Cass was 



234 Heroes of American Discovery. 

given, in honor of the leader of the expedition ; and, provisions now run- 
ning short, it was resolved to turn back. To us who have access only to 
the official reports of the work done, the result obtained on this trip seems 
to have been very inadequate to the preparations made ; but, as we have 
more than once had occasion to feel, it is in the byways rather than the 
highways of our present subject that our pulse is stirred in sympathy with 
heroic deeds. The history of American exploration, properly so called, is 
almost entirely wanting in that element of romance, sxiringing from the con- 
quering of apparently insurmountable difficulties, which lends so subtle a 
charm to the record of the solving of the problems of African geography. 

Long and James, leaders of the second of the two expeditions we have 
alluded to, embarked at St. Louis in a steam packet named the Western 
Engineer^ the first to be launched on the inland waters of the EeiDublic, in 
July, 1819 ; but a little above the mouth of the Kansas, they Avere robbed of 
all they possessed by Pawnee Indians, and compelled to return and refit. 

Early in September a second start was made ; but the season was now so 
far advanced that it was necessary to winter near the mouth of the Platte, 
or Nebraska, so that it was not until the summer of 1820 that the actual 
journey of discovery can be said to have commenced. The first j^urpose of 
the expedition was now, in obedience to orders from headquarters, laid 
aside for a time, while a trip was made u]) the Nebraska, which was fol- 
lowed through the extensive level tracts — traversed by vast hordes of bisons 
and antelopes of various kinds, and rich in quarries of sandstone and lime- 
stone — forming the Platte valley, until the point at which the Nebraska 
divides into two forks was reached. 

Here a halt was made, and it was resolved to follow the southern branch 
to its source in the Rocky Mountains. On the 30th June, the first but- 
tresses of that now Avell known chain came in sight ; and on the 6th of the 
ensuing month, the camp was pitched opposite the chasm from which the 
Platte issues from its mountain home on its way to its junction, first with 
its northern branch, and then with the ^Missouri. 

At this point, situated in N. lat. 39°, AV. long. 105°, the Pocky Mountains 
presented an almost impassable barrier, a perpendicular wall of sand- 
stone, some 200 feet high, running along on either side as far as the eye 
could reach, with granite masses towering beyond it to the sky. Several 
attempts were made to scale this wall, and from one height gained a view 
was obtained of both branches of the Platte, one coming from the north- 



Heroes of American Discovery. 235 

west and the other from the soutli, but it was found impossible to reach the 
actual source of either. 

A different route was now attempted, and, advancing in single file, the 
explorers had succeeded in reacrhing a great height, when their progress was 
again arrested by huge frowning precipices, along which no foothold could 
be obtained. With the aid of ropes, brought in readiness for some such 
emergency, several of the bravest of the party were lowered down a ravine, 
and reached the southern side of the wall, where they halted and refreshed 
themselves with what they took to be some bunches of wild currants. They 
had better have continued to endure the thirst froin wlii(^h they had been 
suffering, as this simple refreshment brought on violent headaches ; and a 
little later, when one of the men paused to drink at what looked like a pure 
mountain spring, sickness immediately succeeded. The poor fellow had to 
be sent back, and only recovered after much suffering. 

These two incidents determined the leader of the party to make no further 
halt until the descent of the western slope of tlie mountain was achieved, 
and his men were pressing on as best they coidd, when they were again 
stopped, this time by meeting a large bear in a narrow defile. In a moment 
a dozen rifles were pointed at the intruder, but before a shot could be fired, 
the huge brute turned aside, and climbed an almost perpendicular precipice 
some thirty feet high, leaving his enemies to gaze after him with almost en- 
vious wonder. 

On the morning of the 13th July, the courage and perseverance of the ad- 
van(;ed guard were ami:>ly rewarded by their coming in sight of the loftiest 
peak yet noticed, which, on examination, turned out to be the one already 
marked in Major Pike's map, bearing his name, and situated in N". lat. 38° 
53', W. long. 105° 52'. 

The main object of the expedition was now accomplished, the almost pre- 
cise situation of the sources of the Nebraska having been determined. Pike's 
Peak was ascended by a few adventurous spirits, and from its summit a 
magnificent view was obtained of masses of snow and ice, succeeded by fer- 
tile valleys and vast plains stretching away to the east. Careful notes hav- 
ing been taken of the main features of the scene, the explorers returned to 
camp, where they w^ere in due course joined by their comrades, and an 
earnest consultation was held as to the next steps to be taken. 

It was finally resolved that the head-Avaters of the Arkansas, the lai-gest 
affluent of the Mississippi after the Missouri, and of several of its minor 



236 Heroes of American Discovery. 

tributaries, should now be sought ; and, with this end in view, a south- 
westerly course was ])ursued along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountain 
Chain. A weary march across the low, bare, sandy plains of the present 
state of Wyoming, strewn with broken sandstone, brought our heroes to the 
brink of the precipice dividing these lofty table-lands from the valley of the 
Arkansas, where they were alike cheered and tantalized by the sight of the 
river they were seeking, llowing through a rich and fertile country. 

It was now decided to divide forces ; Captain Long and most of the men, 
with all the heavy baggage, to go down the Arkansas to the Mississippi and 
await the rest of the party at P'ort Smith, while Captain James and a few 
picked men should continue the explorations among the mountains. The 
first part of the programme was duly carried out, the chief discovery made 
being the existence of a number of chalybeate springs ; but much disaj^- 
pointment and delay attended Captain James and his party in their wander- 
ings among the then unknown tracts inhabited by the Yutas and other wild 
tribes bordering on the Salt Lake territory, a region about which a weird 
mystery clings even now. 

Provisions and water alike ran short ; the beds of streams, to which the 
travelers hastened to quench their thirst, turned out to be full of nothing 
but salt, and all efforts to find the source of the Arkansas failed. At last a 
broad tributary, sui)posed to be the Red River of the South, was discovered 
and followed, but it turned out to be the Canadian, which joins the Arkan- 
sas before the confluence of the latter with the Mississippi. The second 
half of the journey of exploration may therefore be said to have jiraclically 
failed, though the way was paved by it for the colonists who, a few years 
later, migi-ated to the districts traversed. 

The whole party met again at Fort Smith on the Mississippi, and made 
their way thence to the western coast by what had now become quite a well- 
known track. Disgusted with the poor results obtained, however. Major 
Long shortly afterward accepted the command of yet another expedition, 
the aim of which was to explore the vast tracts watered by the northern 
tributaries of the Mississippi, and which, though the property of the United 
States, Avere as yet i:)racticnll3^ unknown. 

The explorers this time started from a village on the Ohio, from which 
they made their way across the province of the same name and part of Indi- 
ana to Lake Michigan, witnessing in their wanderings many terrible scenes 
of cruelty. The Potawatomies, inhabiting the high table-lands of this 



Heroes of American Discovery. 237 

fertile district, are said to have tortured tlieir captives and devoured their 
flesh with a savage cruelty quite equal to any thing ever witnessed else- 
where by European travelers ; and it was with a feeling of intense relief 
that the white men turned aside, after entering the marshy districts border- 
ing on Lake Michigan, to visit the mission station founded long ago by 
their fellow-countryman, Carey, the great Apostle of the Indians, who did 
for the neglected redskins of the present century what the good old Jesuit 
priests had done for their ancestors. 

At this little oasis in the wilderness, fifty acres had already been cleared 
and six log-huts built, in one of which some fifty or sixty Indian children 
were being educated, their parents and chiefs encouraging their teachers in 
every possible way, though not themselves converts either to the civilization 
or to the religion of the white men. From the mission station the expedi- 
tion proceeded through forests and across a rich fertile country of oak- 
openings and prairies, succeeded by swampy plains, till they found them- 
selves on the southern shores of Lake Michigan, which presented the 
appearance of a vast ocean stretching away in an unbroken expanse as far 
as the eye could reach. 

Huge broken bowlders of granite, piles of sand and pebbles, rolling waves 
and white-crested breakers, added to the impression first received, and it 
was difficult to believe that this troubled sea was but one of that long series 
of fresh water lakes from which issues the mightiest artery of North Amer- 
ica, the St. Lawrence of many memories. 

Reluctantly turning his back on the grand scene just described. Long 
now led his party in a south-westerly direction toward the Mississijjpi, 
passing near the site of the present Chicago, and crossing the fertile prairies 
of Illinois, where not a tree breaks the solemn monotony of the wilderness. 
As the Father of Waters was approached, however, the whole character of 
the country changed ; hill and vale, forest and clearing, alternating with 
wildly picturesque rocks and mountains, between which the majestic volume 
of the river rolls in irresistible majesty. 

Embarking on the broad basin of the now well-known river, the travelers 
commenced their actual explorations by struggling upward till they came 
to its junction with the Minnesota, or St. Peter's River, its largest tributary 
north of the Missouri, and which joins it near the Falls of St. Anthony. 
The Minnesota had never yet been followed to its source ; and, entering it, 
Long slowly ascended it to its head- waters, now in a south-wester] y, now in 



238 Heroes of American Discovery. 

a westerly direction, on the borders of tlie Dakota territory, where he 
altered his course to due nortli, and quickly reached the small grouj) of 
lakes from which issues the mighty Red River of the North, and which may 
be said to be set in an ever-shifting framework of swamps and tiooded 
streams. Here are interlocked the head-waters of the northern tributaries 
of the Mississipx^, of the St. Lawrence, and of numy a nunor stream ; and 
— strange i)henomenon even in this land of physical wonders — no lofty 
ridge marks the watershed behind them. The heads of all the rivers are 
connected by canals, and canoes can shoot from one great artery to another 
with no change of level to mark the transition. 

After a good deal of intercourse with our old fiiends the Sioux, the ex- 
plorers launched their canoes on the Red River, and ascended it to the great 
Lake Winnipeg, or the Lake of the Assiniboins, connected by a number of 
small lakes and rivei's with Hudson's Bay, and considered the largest, 
though scarcely the most important of the inland seas belonging to British 
North America. 

Fi'om Lake Winnipeg the explorers descended the river of the same name, 
passing through scenery wilder and gi'ander than any yet visited by them, 
and going through many a peril among the constant succession of cascades 
and cataracts, but arriving in safety at the Lake of the AVoods, that small 
sheet of Avater destined to become so famous in the controversy relating to 
the boundary between the United States and the Hudson's Bay territories. 

The Lake of the Woods, then surrounded by a deserted wilderness of 
rock and forest, was carefully examined, and from it the ])arty made their 
way in a, north-easterly direction to Lake Sui)erior, the whole route consist- 
ing of little more than a series of lakes, streams, and swamps, broken ])y an 
occasional poi'tage or bar of land, over which the canoes had to be dragged. 
All ditliculties weie, however, successfully overcome ; the existence of more 
than one continuous water-passage from west to east was proved beyond a 
doubt, and little moi'e in the way of actual discovery was left to be done by 
future expeditions. 

In 1830, however, it was found desirable to send an expedition to the 
North-west, with a view to restoi'iug ])eace between the Cliipi)eways and 
Sioux ; and the leader selected — the Schoolcraft who had been mainly in- 
strumental in organizing the trip made a few years ])reviously by Cass — 
received instructions to combine with his negotiations an exhaustive survey 
of the upper waters of the Mississippi. He reached Lake Superior in safety 



Heroes of American Discovery. 2J9 

in 1830, but the waters of the rivers nbovt^ it were so low at that time that 
nothing definite could bo accomplished. 

Two years later, Schoolcraft started again, and, after a successful voyage 
up the great river, he arrived at Cass Lake, the most noi'theily point 
reached by the predecessor who had given his name to that now famous sheet 
of water. Here the real difficulties of the expedition began. The Missis- 
sippi branched out into two forks, one of which — the eastern — was followed 
to its source in Lake Ussawa, whence an arduous tramj), or rather paddle, 
across country brought the party, first to the lofty ridge known as the Hau- 
teur des Ferres, separating the tributaries of the lliver de Corbeau from 
tliose of the Red River, and then in sight of the western and main branch 
of the Father of Waters. 

A number of sandy elevations had still to be scaled before the explorers 
once more stood upon the shores of the Mississii)j)i, but on issuing from " a 
thicket into a small weedy opening," the goal of the journey suddenly burst 
upon them. Itasca Lake, the primal home of the western branch of the 
mighty river, lay stretched before them, and the last link in the chain of 
discovery connected with the longest water highway in the world was found. 

Itasca Lake, the Lac la Biche of the early French explorers, is abeautiful 
sluiet of water some seven or eight miles in circumference, with an outlet 
about twelve feet wide, whence the Mississippi exi)ands into a broad and 
copious stream. Its volume appeared strangely out of jiroportion to the 
size of its source, till the i)resence of invisible subterranean springs, such as 
those near the African Lake Tanganyika, was ascertained. 

A thorough exploration of Lake Itasca was succeeded by a perilous voyage 
down a series of rapids forming the lirst stage of the Mississipi)i's joui'ney 
to the ocean ; but, after many a narrow escape, the canoes lioated into the 
broad stream, Hanked on either side by prairies, into which the river widens 
above Lake Cass, whence the trip to Lake Superior lay through districts 
already well known. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT BASIN, ^VITH THE SALT LAKE OF UTAH, AND 
JOURNEY ACROSS THE SIERRA NEVADA TO CALIFORNIA. 

DVRTNG the first years of the present century, tlie tide alike of emigra- 
tion and exploration had set toward the northern territories of the 
United States. The discovery of the sources of theMississipi)i and of those 
of its chief atiluents, however, left little more to be done in that direction, 
and, in 1838, a new chapter in the history of modern American geography 
\vas ushered in by the sending out of a naval exploring expedition, under 
Captain Wilkes, with orders to make surveys along the western coast, es- 
pecially of the bay now known as that of San Francisco. 

On the arrival of \Vilkesat Yerba Buena, as what has since become the 
gate of the Pacific was then called, the town consisted merely of a large 
frame building occupied by an agentof the Hudson's Bay Com]>any, a store 
kept by an American, a billiaid room and bar, a jtoo]) cabin (>f a ship used 
as a residence by a captain, a blacksmith's sho]>. and a few sheds, all of 
which had sprung up at intervals since California, deserted, as related above, 
by its early colonists, had become the prey of tra]^pt>rs, miners, and other 
adventurers of various nationalities. 

The most ])rominent man then in California was a Swiss named Sutter, 
who had bought of the Mexican Government a tract of land thirty leagues 
square, and Avas now emx^loyed in laying it out under the imposing name of 
New Helvetia. He had alivady built a fort near the junction of the Sacra- 
mento and American rivers to which he had given his own name, little 
drtnuuing that the discovery of gold close at hand Avould shortly make that 
nauie world-famous, as the most powerful emigration magnet of the day. 

Equally unconscious of the approaching, almost miraculous change in the 
aspect of alfairs on the south-western coast of Kcu-tli America, AVilkes com- 
] dieted his survey, and returned home to report the harbor of Yerba Buena 
to be one of the finest, if not the very best in the world ; and, a little later, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



241 



the Government sent out an expedition, under Lieutenant John C. Fremont, 
to explore the southern lialf of tlie Rocky Mountain Range, with a view to 
the discovery of a good route to California. 

Fremont left the mouth of the Kansas, at the head of a party of about 




twenty, about the 2d of May, and followed its course across the state of the 
same name, till he reached the barren banks of the Platte, or Nebraska. 
Here he decided to follow the southern fork of that important tributary of 
the Mississippi, and a march of a few miles brought the party into the 



242 Heroes of Anieyieaii Diseoz'ery. 

distru'ts occupied by tlie Arapalio and Cheyenne Indians, the former 
of whom at lirst appeared disposed to dispute the passage of the Avhite 
men. 

One encounter, which threatened to be serious, took phice on the 8th 
July. Tlie excitement of watching a light between some eighteen or twenty 
bulfaloes, which the explorers litid at the last moment decided in favor of 
the weaker x)arty by a few well-directed shots, had but just subsided, when 
some dark objects api)eareil on the horizon among the hills. Moi-e bulTaloes, 
of course, thought every one ; but, presently, Maxwell, a tradei' who knew 
the neighborhood and its jieople well, happened to look behind him, and 
saw crowds of mounted natives furiously urging on their horses. 

At first there seemed to be no more than twenty warriors, but behind 
them came others, and soon the hills and plains were darkened by the dusky 
figures. The exjilorers halted, drew together, and determined to sell their 
lives as dearly as they could, prepared to meet the onslaught with a volley 
of bullets. Another moment, and many of the Indians would have been 
rolling in the dust, when Maxwell suddenly recognized their leader as a man 
with whom he had often traded. ''Don't you know me T' he shouted in 
the Arapaho language ; and, astonished at the sound of his own tongue, 
the chief wheeled his horse round. Then, dashing forward, he extended his 
hand to Fremont with the one word "Arapaho," meaning that, as a mem- 
ber of that nation, he was the friend of Maxwell's friend. 

Escorted by the now courteous savages, the exjiedition pressed (ii, and, 
without further adventures of consequence, followed the south fork of the 
Platte to St. Vram's Fort, a trading outpost, sitmited just under the most 
easterly buttresses of the Rocky ^Mountain Range, about seventeen miles 
from Long's Peak. Pike's Peak could also be seen about one hundred 
miles to the south, and but little ol" actual exploration remained to be done 
in the immediate neighborhood. Fremont resolved, therefore, vo alter his 
course, and follow the north fork of the Platte to Fort Laramie, a second 
remote outpost in the wilderness, whence he hoped to nuike his way to the 
head of the Sweet Water River, an affluent of the Kebraska issuing from 
the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains. 

Crossing the fertile, garden-like valley of the Platte, with the low line of 
the frowning Black Hills on the left, the exjiedition reached Fort Laramie 
in safety on the 13th July, and were there detained a few days on account 
of difliculties between the white settlers and the Gros- Ventre, Cheyenne, 



Heroes of American Discovery. 243 

Sioux, and other tribes, wlio were scouring tlie country between the Platte 
and the Rocky Mountains, rendering it unsafe for travelers. 

Imagining the dangers to have been overrated, liowever, Fremont and his 
colleagues resolved not to allow them to prevent the completion of their 
task. On the 18th, therefore, when the men had had time to recover from 
the fatigues of their long march, they were called togethei-, and Fremont 
told them of his intention to proceed, adding that he was willing to release 
any one of them from his engagement wlio was desirous to retire from the 
service. Only one man availed himself of this privilege, and when he had 
been dismissed, amidst the ridicule of his comrades, active preparations 
were made for the continuation of the journey. 

The tents were struck, the horses saddled, and the "stirrup-cup" was 
being enjoyed, when four chiefs made their way into the midst of the white 
men, and one of them having handed a letter to Fremont, they seated them- 
selves in silence to watch him read it. The letter, which was in French, 
ran as follows : — 

"Fort Platte, July 1st, 1842. 
"Mr. Fremont, — The chiefs, having assembled in council, have just told 
me to warn you not to set out before the party of young men which is now 
out shall have returned. Furthermore, tliey tell me that they are veiy sure 
to fire upon you as soon as they meet you. They are expected back in seven 
or eight days. Excuse me for making these observations, but it seems my 
duty to warn you of danger. Moreover, the chiefs who prohibit your setting 
out before the return of the warriors are the bearers of this note. 

" I am your obedient servant, 

"Joseph Bissouette." 

This Joseph Bissouette Avas the interpreter engaged for the passage of the 
country between Fort Laramie and the Rocky Mountains, and the warning 
was therefore not to be neglected. The chiefs, whose names were given as 
Otter Hat, Breaker of Arrows, Black Night, and Bull's Tail, maintained 
silence while Fremont read and explained the letter to his men. Then one 
of them advanced, and, having shaken hands — a ceremony all Indians who 
have had any thing to do with white men are careful not to neglect — he 
made a speech to the effect that he and his people were glad to see their 
white brothers . . . they looked upon their coming as the light wliicli goes 



244 Htrocs of American Discoi'cry. 

b^^fo^e the sun. for tliey would tell their great father (^so they called the 
President of the United States) that they had seen them, and that they 
were naked and poor. But these dear white brothers had e(.»nie at a bail 
time. Some of the Indians had been killed by emigrants from the great 
father s lands far away in the East, and the young warriors in the mount- 
ains would avenge the blood of their relations, etc., etc. 

To this harangue, whicli from the ixunt of view of the poor dispossessed 
owners of the soil was really very moderate, Fremont, after a few general 
remarks, made answer — " AVe have thrown away our bodies, and will not 
turn back. When you told us that your young men would kill us, you did 
not know that our hearts were strong, and you did not see the rities which 
my young men carry in their hands. AVe are few, and you are many, and 
may kill us all ; but there will be much crying in your villages, for many of 
your young men will stay behind, and forget to return with your warriors 
f ii>m the mountains. Do you think that our great chief will let his soldiers 
ilie. and forget to cover their graves \ Before the snows melt again, his 
warriors will sweep away your villages, as the tire does the j^niirie in the 
aurumn. See I I have pulled down my white houses, and my iHH~>x>le are 
ready ; when the sun is ten paces higher, we shall be on the march. If you 
have any thing to tell us. you will say it soon."" 

The chiefs withdrew in sullen silence, the preparations for the march were 
resumed, and the expedition was again just starting, when BulTsTail came 
back with a message that a young man should be sent as guide to the tirst 
stopping place. This aj^parently slight concession meant every thing. The 
jn-esence of one warrior would, as all knew, protect the whole of the whites 
from the savages out on the hills : and, naming the place for the pitching of 
the camp that evening, Fremont cordially thanked the emissary, who re- 
turned at once to his comrades. 

Following the north fork of the Platte, the explorers soon entered a deso- 
late ctnintry, laid waste by the combined evils of drought and Avar. The 
interpreter urged Fremont to turn back, assuring him that death from 
starvation was all but inevitable. Again calling his men together, the leader 
once more gave them their choice of juishing on or n^urning, and all but 
six decided for the latter course. These six cried with one voice, ** We'll 
eat the mules if butTalo are not to be had ; " and. shaking hands with their 
comrades, the brave little remnant in-essed oi\. 

On th»^ olst July the Platte was left behind, and a short march broudit 



Heroes of AnicriccDL Discovery. 245 

the expedition to the banks ol" its iilllnent, tli(^ Sweet Watei- llivcu-, which 
Hows in a g<'nth^ cicsccnt IVoni tlu^ most ])i('tiii'es(|iu5 goi-gc ol" th(5 Uoc.liy 
Mountains, now caHed tlie Sonlli Pass, but llicii i)raetically niikiiown to the 
whiti^ man. Now climbiiiL!; some lugi^'ed licii^lil, now i)ausiiig' lo i<'st 011 tlie 
banks of the river, tlie gigantic lidge called I lie DcniPs (^ate waslei't behind, 
and on the 7th August the Soutli Pass itself was entered. 

Instciad of tin? arduous cliuib associabnl as a matter of (course wil h the 
scaling of the Rocky Mountains, Fremont now found liimseir ascending a 
sandy plain, which brought him, imi)erceptib]y as it were, to the primal 
home of many a riviu* ilowing into the Pacific^ Tlu^ watei'shed — as unique 
in its charactiu- as the swa,m[)s whi(5h nurse the infancy o! the Mississi])pi 
and the St. Lawrence — left beliind, Fremont led his little band up a long 
and beautiful ravine, discovering, a few mihvs further on, a lake "set like a 
gem in the mountains." 

The newly-found sheet of water, which was ascertained to be the source 
of one branch of th<i Colorado of the West, was named Mountain Lake ; and 
the instructions of the Crovi^nment having now beiui fully carried out, it was 
resolved to return eastward. Befon^ sounding the n^treat, however, Fi"(>- 
mont noticed a lofty mountain peak in the vicinity of the South Pass, and 
resolved to ascend it. This turned out to Ix^ a matter of consideral)l(^ difli- 
culty. First the mules wei-e left behind, then boots and stockings werci 
discarded, the use of the toes being absolutely necessary to the advance of 
the climbers. 

Fremont himself was the first to reach the summit. 7V vailing himself of 
a kind of comb of the mountain, he gained a point with an overhanging 
buttress, round wliicli he crept, putting hands and feet in the crevices be- 
tween the blocks, and often hanging over a vertical precsipice several hund- 
red feet deep, where a moment's giddiness would have been fatal. At last 
he stood, to quote his own words, " on a narrow crest about three feet in 
width, with an inclination of about 20" N., 51° E. ; " and though he did not 
know it then, he had reached the highest point of the great Rocky Mount- 
ain Range, 18,500 feet above the sea-level — a point still known, in honor 
of its discoverer, as Fremont's Peak. 

As h(^ i)aused to rest, and gazed down upon the lovely view at his feet, 
stretching away to the shores of the Pacific, Fn^mont relates that a solitaiy 
bee came flying w\\ from the eastern valley, and settled on Ihe knee of one 
of the men, " A inoment's thought," he adds, "-would hav(; made us let 



246 Heroes of American Discovery, 

this solitary pioneer of the advance of civilization continue his way un- 
harmed ; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated 
nature seems at war." The bee was caught, killed, and placed among the 
flowers collected on the way uj^ ; and in this slight incident we read a mel- 
ancholy i>ropliecy of the fate awaiting the human inhabitants of the lands 
now for the iirst time brought within the limits of that civilization which 
has never yet proved itself wide enough to contain the red man and the 
white. 

From the summit of Fremont's Peak the explorers could see on the one 
side the innumerable lakes and streams among which sprang tlie Colorado 
of the Gulf of California, while on the other lay the romantic Wind River 
Valley, whence flows the Yellowstone branch of the Missouri ; while far 
away on the north rose the snow-crowned heads of the Trois Tetons. the 
first homes of the Missouri and Columbia, with the less lofty peaks at the 
southern extremity of the range which witnessed the birth of the Nebraska. 
Of the whole scene, the most remarkable characteristic was, and is, the 
traces of terrible convulsions of nature. The chain is split from end to end 
into ridges and chasms, alternated with thin walls of rock, broken at their 
terminations into natural minarets and columns, producing an effect of 
weird, unearthly beauty y>eculiarly striking. 

Noting, however, but the main features of a district now associated with 
so many scenes of adventure in the great rush of emigration westward so 
soon to follow, Fremont hastened back to his camp in the South Pass, and 
thence returned to Fort Laramie, which he reached in safety without the 
loss of a single man, all the prophecies as to the dangers awaiting him being 
unfulfilled. A few weeks later, his report was in the hands of his Govern- 
ment, who marked their sense of their services by at once appointing him to 
the command of a second expedition ; this time with orders to connect the 
work he had already done with that of AA'ilkes. by examining the country 
between the southern half of the Kocky Mountains and the shores of the 
Paciflc. AVith this end in view, Fremont, accompanied by some thirty-nine 
men — Canadians, Creoles, and Americans — started from Kansas, near the 
junction of tliat river with the Missouri, early in June. 1843. 

Following the now well-beaten emigrant tracks for the West, the exj^edi- 
tion reache'd tlie Kocky >rountains considerably to the south of the pass 
discovered on the previous trii\ and near the connecting ridge between the 
Utah or Bear River Mountains and the AYind River chain. This ridge 



Heroes of American Discovery. 247 

separated the waters flowing to the Gnlf of California on the east, and 
those on the west which rim more directly to the Pacific, from that vast 
inland basin of lakes with no outlet to the ocean. 

Crossing the Kocky Mountains, the i)arty entered the fertih^ and ])ictur- 
esque valley of the Bear or Utah lliver, the chief tributary of tlu^ (jreat 
Salt Lake, lirst alluded to by Baron La Hontan in 1689, but never before 
visited by any white man except wandering trajipers, whose eyes had been 
blind to the wonderful nature of tlu^ phenomenon now to be examined. 

Slowly descending the lovely valley, tenanted only by a few Shoshone 
Indians, Fremont reached the now famous l^eer Springs, situated in a 
mountain-locked basin of mineral waters, on the 25th August. These 
springs burst from openings in the rocks, and give off an effervescing gas, 
which produces nn eifect of great beauty, the water rising in trembling col- 
umn to a considerable height, accompanied by a subterranean noise, ac- 
counted for by the natives in many a weird legend. 

Beyond the Beer Springs the cavalcade pressed on to the wild western 
region between them and Salt Lake inhabited by the scattered Root Indians, 
who live almost entirely on roots and seeds, and on the Ist September 
reached the junction of the Bear and Roseaux Rivers, where an india-rubber 
boat x^rovided for river navigation was inflated and launched on the waters 
of the united streams. A little further on, however, Ike river, which Fre- 
mont had hoped would carry him down to the lake, itself suddenly divided 
into a number of shallow branches, and the laud journey had to be resumed. 

Through low Hats, across salt marshes, or the salt incrusted beds of dried- 
up lakes, the weary travelers plodded. On the 6th September their perse- 
verance was at last rewarded by reaching the summit of a kind of ridge, 
from which they beheld, immediately at their feet, the watei's of the long- 
sought inland sea, stretching in silent grandeur far beyond their range of 
vision, and receiving in its cold and lifeh^ss bosom all the rivers of the vast 
basin of Utah, except the head branch(\s of the Colorado and Humboldt. 

From the center of the lake rose several islands, some of them 8,250 feet 
above its level, but no sign of aniinal or vegetable life could l)e d(^tected on 
any of them. Equally lon(»ly and deserted were the wild, weird heights and 
dreary stretches of briny wastes shutting in the shores of the "still innocent 
Dead Sea" itself, and it was Avith a feeling almost akin to shrinking that 
Fremont made ]ireparations for launching his boat upon its waters. 

After a somewhat perilous voyage, during which the ch)thes of the ex- 



24S Heroes of American Discovery. 

plorers became inorusted with salt, the boat was brought within wading 
distance of one of the smaller islands, and, landing, Fi-emont carefully ex- 
amineil its strange cliffs and masses, tiuding them also covered with the 
appar^^ntly onmii>i-esent salt. A few temporary tents were then constructed 
of the driftwood scatteivd on the shores, and after kindling large lii-es to 
excite the wonder of any straggling savage on the lake shore, the successful 
explorei-s — the tirst of their race to spend a night near the site of the now 
world-famous Salt Lake City — lay down to sleep. . 

In the morning, to the surprise of all. the noise of huge waves breaking on 
the i"ocks was the lii"st sound to greet their ears, and no time was lost in 
making their way back to the mainland. The •" still and lifeless bosom" 
of the lake had changed its character, and. though powerless to give or, 
nourish vitality, proved its capacity to destroy. The fragile india-rubber 
bark was more than once nearly swallowed up in its treacherous waters, but 
late in the day all landed from it in siifety, and on the 12th September the 
journey was resumed. 

Following much the same route as that taken on the way to the lake, our 
hero now led his men back to the Bear River, and thence through the great 
basin lx>aring his name, and inclosing the vast system of rivers and creeks 
belonging to the newly discovei"ed Dead Sea. to a ravine commanding a pass 
in the dividing ridge between the waters of the Bear River and the Snake or 
Lewis fork of the Colnmbia : thus, so to speak, throwing a bridge of con- 
nection across fix>m his own work to that of his predecessors. 

On the 10th September the expedition arrived in safety at Fort Hall, a 
trading j>ost situated in a low and fertile valley, some twenty miles long, 
formed by the continence of the Portneuf and Snake Rivers. The winter 
Avas now rapidly approaching, yet Fremont ivsolved to push on lirst to the 
Columbia River, and fix>m thence home by a new route, making what he 
characterizes as a "great circuit to the south and south-east," with a view 
to the exploration of the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the 
SieiTa Nevada. 2s o persuasions could induce him to alter this determina- 
tion, although the task he had set himself was pi"onounced absolutely im- 
practicable. He arrived in siifety at Fort Vancouver, about ninety miles 
fmm the mouth of the Columbia, on the 16th November, and almost imme- 
diately commenced the ivturn journey : but he had not proceeded far. when 
he found himself in a pathless wilderness haunted by bands of wandering 
Indians. tnMw whom scarcely any guidance and no food could be obtained. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



249 



On the 10th December, a hike, to which tlie name of Tlamath was given, 
was discovered ; and on the 14th a stream was struck, which Fremont, from 
astronomical observations taken, concluded to be the principal branch of 
the Sacramento. He now hoped to tind an opening in the mountains 
through which lie could reach the districts explored in the early part of his 
trip ; but in this he was unsuccessful. Three weeks of exhausting wander- 
ing brought the weary travelers to another remarkable mountain lake, to 
which, on account of a tapering rock rising from its center, the name of 
Pyramid was given. 

While the indefatigable hero was ascertaining the exact position of the 



^T-i-Trf' 





i% !t 



;'"'""7v2^"'^"\'',' %=5n^ 



tI 



. m 11 \ f'^ 





TEMPLE BLOCK, SALT LAKE CITY. 

newly-found sheet of water, a few half-naked Indians, speaking a dialect of 
the Snake language, made their appearance, and said they lived in the rocks 
hard by, and that there was a river at the end of the lake. Cheered by 
being again in a country where human beings could live, Fremont led his 
party round the lake to the so-called river, and found it to be merelj^ a 
fresh-water stream flowing into, not out of, the Pyramid. This at once 
convinced him that he had discovered, not the head-waters of any river, but 
a vast interior lake Avithout outlet. 
The last of the cattle brought for provisions for the j^arty had been killed 



250 Heroes of American Discovery. 

a day or two previously, and it was now a question of the utmost moment 
wlietlier an attemj^t should be made to X)it?rce the mountains on the east or 
go down through those on the west to the sea, when a number of Indians 
came out of a neighboring thicket who said their water was full of fish. 
The camp was at once jntched, and a little later the hungry explorers were 
enjoying a hearty meal of salmon trout. The natives, however, could give 
but little information about their country. They made a drawing of their 
river on the ground, representing it as issuing from another lake in the 
mountains three or four days distant, beyond which was a single mountain, 
and further away still were two rivers, on one of which white people like 
their guests traveled. 

Whether these white jieople were settlers on the Sacramento, or travelers 
from the United States, there was no evidence to show ; and after a long 
and eager discussion with his folloAvers, Fremont resolved finally to abandon 
all idea of returning to the United States for the present, and to cross the 
Sierra Nevada into the valley of the Sacramento. This decision was greeted 
Avith eager acclamation by all concerned ; and although the Indians assured 
him that the mountains were altogether impassable in the winter, not a 
moment was lost in preparing for the arduous undertaking. 

The first peak of the most (^astei'ly range of the mighty rocky barrier Avas 
scaled on the 2()th January ; but a violent snoAvstoi ni coming on compelled 
the travelers to turn southward, and encamp on the eastern side of the 
mountains. A little further on a large stream was discovered, which was 
followed to its outlet from the mountains, where the ascent of the ridge Avas 
again commenced. A wild and narroAv pass, through which ran an Indian 
trail, Avith mountains on either side cased in suoav and ice, led up to a lofty 
height, loolving doAvn fi-om Avliich, several natives Avere seen skimming and 
circling about on snoAv-shoes. 

The shouts of the Avhites, aa^Iio Avere eager to obtain guides, only fright- 
ened the natives, AA^ho scudded rapidly aAvay ; but the next day a number of 
Indians AA'ere surju-ised in a little valley, and the travelers succeeded in re- 
assuring them by signs of friendship. With great difficulty — the language 
spoken by these children of the desert being quite unintelligible — Fremont 
made out that the Avaters along Avhich he had been traveling belonged to 
the system of the Great Basin, on the edge of AA^hich he had been since early 
in December, and that the great ridge on the left must still be crossed 
before tlie Pacilic Ocean could be reached. 1 



Heroes of America7i Discovery. 



251 



Explaining to the Indians that he was endeavoring to find a passage 
through the mountains into the country of the whites, which he was going 
to see, Fremont begged them to find him a guide, to whom j^resents of scar- 
h^t ckjth and other articles should be given. The redskins looked at the 
rewards offered, consulted together, and then, first pointing to the snow on 
the mountains, drew their hands across their necks to slioiv how deej) it 
was. It was impossible, they imjjlied by their gestures, to go through this 
barrier of solid water ; the white men must turn southward to begin with, 
and not westward, until after a long tramp in that direction. 

To this comjjromise Fremont was obliged to consent, and, escorted by a 
young Indian guide, he led his weary followers ten miles in a south-easterly 




i-'M.ws'. w X ■* 



SAX FRANCI-. 



16-10. 



direction, reaching, on the 31st January, a gap in the Sierra Nevada, 
through which he hoped to jjenetrate to the fertile jjlains bejond. Again 
he was disappointed ; the jjass scaled, he still had before him a great con- 
tinuous range, which he felt satisfied was the central ridge of the Sierra 
Nevada, the great Californian Mountain. He now knew, however, that the 
Bay of San Francisco, or Yerba Btiena, as it was still called, lay on the 
other side of this great mass, and resolved, at whatever cost, to traverse it 
without delay. 

The camjj was pitched in the eastern side, and the fires had scarcely been 
lighted, when crowds of almost naked Indians rushed in, bringing with them 
long nets and bows greatly resembling those in use on tlie Sacramento 



252 Heroes of American Discovery. 

River, which, as Fremont knew, drains the great central valley of Califor- 
nia. Here was an incidental proof of the npi)i'oaching end of the long and 
terrible journey, for in nothing are local influences in America more dis- 
tinctly reflected than in the arms and utensils of the natives. 

Very eager were the questions put to the new-comers, who were, so to 
sj)eak, links between the east and the west of the mighty barrier to be 
crossed, and having heard all that they could tell, Fremont informed his 
men of the resolution he had already long before come to himself, of cross- 
ing the Californian Mountain. Again a young man was induced by a large 
present to act as guide, and on the 1st February the great enterprise was 
begun. 

Silently — for they knew how hazardous was the task before them — the ex- 
plorers commenced the ascent of the mountain, along the valley of a tribu- 
tary stream of the Salmon-trout River. Deeper and deeper became the 
snow, and it was soon necessary to break a road. Ten men were told off for 
this service, mounted on the strongest surviving horses, each man in succes- 
sion opening a path until he and his steed became exhausted, when he drew 
aside and let his comrade pass him. Sixteen miles were thus traversed ; a 
height of 6,750 feet above the sea-level was attained, and still the icy peaks 
reared their heads with no sensible diminution in their lofty inaccessibility. 

On the 4tli February, two Indians joined the party, and one of them, an 
old man, made a harangue, much of which was understood by Fremont, 
who had now learned something of the language of the mountaineers. 
" Rock uj^on rock, rock upon rock, snow ui^on snow, snow upon snow lies 
before you," said the speaker, "and even if you get over the snow, you will 
not be able to get down from the mountains." The guide, on whom no word 
was lost, was so overcome by the apparent hopelessness of the situation, 
that he covered his face with his blanket and wept bitterly. "I wanted to 
see the whites," he moaned ; " I came away from my own people to see the 
whites, and I wouldn't care to die among them, but here . . ." Sobs 
checked his voice ; "and," as Fremont adds with the quaint humor which 
luns throughout much of his narrative, "seated round the tree, the fire il- 
luminating the rocks and the tall boles of the pines round about, and the old 
Indian haranguing, we presented a group of very serious faces." 

The next morning, the guide, over(^ome by the horror awakened by the 
Indian's prophecy of disaster, ran away, and Fremont, rallying his men 
about him, offered to go forward on snow-shoes, witli one companion, a Mr. 



Heroes of Americafi Discovery. 253 

Fitzpatrick, and make a reconnaissance. The result won by this prompt 
measure imbued tlie whole party with fresh energy. From the summit of a 
peak ten miles from the camp, a view was obtained of a low range of mount- 
ains, which could ba none other than those of the coast of California. Be- 
tween the explorers, then, and this sea-board chain lay the valley of the 
Sacramento, and, when they eagerly scanned the intervening space with 
glasses, the course of a river could be made out, with dots of prairie land on 
either side. 

Another six days of struggle with ice and snow, and the camp was pitched 
on the summit of the pass, 2,000 feet higher than that of the South Pass of 
the Rocky Mountains, in the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada, and in N. 
lat. 38° 44, W. long. 120° 28'. Thus, for the first time, was revealed to the 
white man of modern days the phenomenon of a range of mountains at the 
extremity of the continent liigh^H* than the great Rocky Mountains them- 
selves. The existence of the Great Basin was accounted for, and it was 
evident that here too there must be a system of small, land-locked lakes and 
rivers which the Sierra Nevada forever prevents from escaping to the Pacific 
Ocean. 

The mountain barrier was conquered at last, and, descending the Avestern 
slopes, with hearts beating high with hoj)e and trium^jh, the heroes soon 
struck the waters of a river which turned out to be the American fork of 
the Sacramento. Following it tlirough a beautiful and fertile country, they 
came, on the 6th March, to Sutter's Fort, outside which they were met by 
its owner and founder, who, as will readily be imagined, gave them an en- 
thusiastic welcome. 

Thus ended one of the most romantic and perilous journeys ever made in 
the United States. For the first time, the Sierra Nevada had been crossed 
by white men, and for the first time, the existence of an overland route be- 
tween the East and tlie West had been proved. 

The remainder of the trip to the sea, through the beautiful valley of the 
San Joaquin, though interesting, was tame in comparison with the transit 
of the mountains. After approacliing the now well known Bay of San 
Francisco, Fremont made his way back by a more southerly and less difii- 
cult route than in his westward journey to the Great Basin, again visiting 
the Salt Lake of Utah, and making acquaintance with many a fine specimen 
of the southern branch of the great Shoshone family. 

Toward the close of May, the Great Salt Lake was left behind, and a fort- 



254 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



night's journey, throiigli tlie coniimiatively I'umiliiir districts overlooked by 
tlu^ niountiiiiis dividiiii"- llic Pncilic Ironi tlie Mississii)])i i-ivers, brought the 
parly onco niori^ to tlie South Pass of tlie Rocky Mountains, iirst scaled by 
Fremont three years before. A slight detour southward, to examine three 
peaks well known to the hunter and ti'apper, but hitherto unnamed, was 
succeeded by a journey across the Pocky Mountains, rendered somewhat 
exciting by a struggle going on between the Arapahoes and the Utahs, but 
on the iStli.Tune the summit of the ridge, 11,200 feet above the sea-level, 
overlooking the head-watei's of the Ai'kansas, was reached in safety. The 
Arkansas was now followed to its junc-tion with the Mississipxn, on the 
broatl waters of which the explorers embarkeil on the 18th July, arriving 
at St. Louis on the (Jtli August. 

In 1848, the indefatigable Fremont made another journey to California, 
this time at his own expense ; but in attempting to cross the mountains be- 
tween the Kio ({rande and the Colorado in the depth of winter, his guitle 
lost his way, and nearly all the men and animals died a miserable death. 
Fremont himself escaped, but we have been unable to obtain any record of 
his adventures, or of the geographical discoveries made on this last trip, 
which, however, took plac(^ after tlie discovery of gold near Sutter's Fort 
and the admission of (California to the lTnit)n had comi)letely revolutionized 
the aspect of aifairs. 



I 










jy 




CAMTEl) IN IIIK DKSKKT. 



CHAPTER XV. 

TWO GREAT EMIGRATIONS. 

SHORTLY after the discovery of the Great Salt Lake by Fremont, took 
place that remarka])le event in Illinois which led to the peopling of the 
Great Basin with the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, followers of the so- 
called martyr, Joe Smith, who, thrown into prison for the crimes he had 
committed in the name of religion, was murdered by a band of roughs on 
tlie 29th June, 1844, The State of Illinois had granted the Mormons lands, 
and they had lived long enough on them to found the city of Nauvoo, in 
which they had built a huge and imposing temple of polished marble. 

After the murder of Smith, the original inhabitants of Illinois, disgusted 
at the immoral practices of the Mormons, compelled them to sell their prop- 
erty and leave the state. The Saints now resolved to emigrate far away 
from all civilized communities, and to found a new republic among the vast 
solitudes of the Rocky Mountains. Explorers were sent out in different di- 
rections to choose the best locality for the purpose, and their reports led to 
the selection of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Westward then the emigrants, 
headed by their new prophet Brigham Young, began to movci, their exodus 
resembling that of the Israelites from Egypt more than any of modern times. 

In February, 1846, the Mississippi, then frozen over, was crossed, and a 
journey of fifteen hundred miles, through a country without roads, bridges, 
rivers, or wells, and X)eoi)l(id by wild })ands of Pawnee and Shoshone In- 
dians, was commenced. Bravely, however, the multitudes pushed on, and 
however we may condemn their peculiar tenets, we can not withhold from 
them our admiration for the faith which braced them up in what they looked 
upon as suffering for righteousness' sake. Still more must we honor the 
moral courage which, when the Avar broke out between the United States 
and Mexico, led Young to send live hundred of his sturdiest men to help 
their country in her hour of need, the ranks of his followers closing up, 
when they were gone, to face the now double dangers of the way, with no 
perceptible weakening of resolution. 



256 Heroes of American Discovery. 

The Missouri was safely forded, and the great wiklerness beyond was 
traversed without any great loss of life. Then caine the ascent of the Eocky 
Mountains, already associated Avitli the memory of so much heroism, and, 
early in the year 1847, the western slopes resounded to the clang of trum- 
pets and the tramp of thousands going down at last to take possession of 
their desolate inheritance on the shores of the "still innocent Dead Sea." 

Without a day's, with scarcely an hour's delay, work was commenced, 
and, as if by magic, the dreary wiklerness began to blossom as a rose. The 
rivers of the hills were diverted from their courses to irrigate the fields ; 
homestead after homestead rose from the salt-encumbered jilains ; patches 
of orchards broke the dull monotony of the sands ; the Utahs and Shoshones 
were won over })y gifts and kindness to act as hunters and trappers for the 
new-comers, and l)efore a year was over, Salt Lake City rose from the banks 
of a river aptly named Jordan, between Lake Utah and the Great Salt Lake. 
A tabernacle— not so imposing as the last marble temple, but still a grand 
edifice to rise from such a spot — soon enabled the Mormons to worshij) once 
more according to their jDeculiar rites ; emigrants jDoured in from every side, 
and in less than twenty years from the founding of Salt Lake City its i)0i3u- 
lation numbered 8,218. 

As a matter of course, this great movement was attended by the opening 
up of the surrounding country. Numerous expeditions were sent out from 
the United States to inquire into the position of the infant community, and 
to explore new routes from the Great Basin to the Pacific. In the years 
1849 and 1850 an exhaustive survey of the river systems, mountain ranges, 
etc., of the whole district was made by Captain Stansbury of the American 
army ; and in his report the student will find much valuable information 
sup|)lementary to that won by our heroes of actual discovery. But his 
work sinks into insignificance before the thrilling interest of the second 
great migration of our own day, that which succeeded the close of the war 
w^ith Mexico in 1848 by a treaty consigning California to tlie United States, 
and the discovery, one month later, of gold on the lands of that Captain 
Sutter, who has already figured twice in our narrative. 

From end to end of the earth spread the news of the existence of vast 
seams of ore on the hitherto deserted shores of the Bay of San Francisco. 
The name of Sacramento, the infant settlement founded by Sutter, was in 
every mouth ; and from the north and from the south, from the east and 
from the west, a stream of adventurers began to struggle toward it. In 1849 



Heroes of American Discovery, 257 

took place the overland emigration of no less than thirty thousand souls, 
men, women and children — half of them entering California by the old Gila 
route, associated with the Franciscan fathers of the earlier XJortion of our 
narrative; the other half literally forcing their way, step by step, across the 
rugged passes of the Rocky Mountains. 

The Pawnees, the Sioux, and the Arajmhoes, amazed and awe-struck at 
their numbers, fled at their approach, but the less easily cowed enemies of 
famine and pestilence thinned their ranks. Still undaunted, the survivors, 
leaving the dead bodies of their comrades a prey to the wild beasts of the 
wilderness, pressed on, and, the Rocky Mountains left behind, they swarmed 
into the valley of Humboldt's River, watering the western half of the newly- 
formed State of Utah. Many were here obliged to halt for want of fodder 
for their cattle or food for themselves ; and it is related that some of the ad- 
venturers, in their eager lust to be the first to arrive in the new El Dorado, 
set fire to the meadows of dry grass to hinder the progress of those behind 
them. 

On the shores of the Humboldt River a separation took place in the ranks 
of those still able to proceed, some making for the head of the Sacramento 
Valley, others choosing the better route to the American fork of the Sacra- 
jnento River. Of the former, nearly all perished before reaching their des- 
tination; of the latter, many were rescued by the noble heroism of parties 
sent out from California to their relief. Enough of the original thirty 
thousand survived to fill the hitherto desolate valley of the new south-west- 
ern state with life. Every ensuing spring brought new comers ; the little 
settlement of Yerba Buena became the port of San Francisco, which, from 
" a scattering town of tent and canvas houses," grew in four short months 
to a po];)ulous city, "displaying," to quote the words of Bayard Taylor, 
" street after street of well-built edifices, filled with an active and enter- 
prising people, and exhibiting every mark of permanent commercial pros- 
perity;" while on every stream clustered the huts of miners, and from 
every sheltered nook rose the smoke of the settler's cabin. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AMONG THE APACHES, NAVAJOES, AND ZUNI INDIANS OF TEXAS, ARIZONA, 

AND NEW MEXICO. 

SHORTLY after the great tide of emigration had swept into California, 
yet another vast tract of country, that now known under the several 
titles of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, was annexed to the United 
States, We have already visited these districts in the conii)any of various 
early heroes, chiefly missionary ; but in the adventures of Cozens, as re- 
lated in his Marvelous Country, we lind so many vivid pictures of the life 
of the wild inhabitants at the present day, that we propose supi)lementing 
our record of discovery by a short abstract of his travels. 

Cozens left Merilla, a town of Mexico, in company with three other gen- 
tlemen and a few servants, in June, 1858, with the intention of visiting first 
the copper mines of Santa Rita del Cobre, on the Rio Mimbres, and thence 
making his way into Arizona. Simple as this progrannue ajjijears, its exe- 
cution was fraught with great difficulty, owing to the hostility of the 
Apaches, a wild native race inhabiting the mountain fastnesses of the north 
of Spanish America. 

The party were riding happily along, after a careful examination of the 
mines, when the mule ridden by Mr. Laws showed signs of uneasiness. 
"There are evidently Indians near," said Cozens; to which Dr. Steck, a 
second of his companions, replied, "If there are, they know better than to 
attack their Great Father," the name by which he was himself called by 
the savages, among Avhom he had long been working. He was wrong ! A 
few minutes later, a small canon, or pass, was entered, with lofty rugged 
rocks on either side ; and when retreat was imi)ossible^ the war-whoop of 
the Apaches suddenly rang out from above, and, echoing from side to side, 
filled every heart with horror. 

A moment's pause, and then, spurring on their mules, the travelers en- 
deavored to reach the mouth of the canon, but, alas ! even as they gained 
it, an arrow struck Laws in the back. He fell from the saddle dead, and 



11 



Heroes of American Discovery. 259 

the mule which had first given warning of the apf)roaching catastroi)he gal- 
loped riderless away. 

The survivors hastily retreated to a neighboring height, determined to sell 
their lives as dearly as they could ; but though they waited an hour, revol- 
vers in hand, for the arrival of the Indians, they were left unmolested. 
When the evening shadows lessened the risk, they returned to the spot 
where Laws had fallen, and, j)lacing his corpse before them on their saddles, 
carried it with them to the summit of the highest hill within reach. There, 
by the liglit of the moon, a grave was dug, and poor Laws was buried. No 
stone or other memorial marked his resting-place, as it would but have 
served to provoked the desecration of his remains. 

The next day the march was resumed, and, during an interesting trip 
among the lovely passes of the Mexican range, known as Los Organos, an 
adventure was met with, scarcely less exciting, though less tragical in its 
ending, than the encounter with the Apaches. Tlie guide, who was a little 
in advance of the party he was escorting, suddenly pointed to a spot far up 
on the mountain, and observed laconically, "Yonder is the hole of a cinna- 
mon bear.'' It was at once resolved that the owner of the k)fty cave should 
be compelled to show himself, and pay for that privilege with his life. 

The guide leading the way, all but Cozens, who was in no humor for the 
sport, proceede to climb up to the mouth of the hole, it being agreed that 
each should fire as he saw the bear emerge from his retreat. When all were 
in position, the guide commenced operations by dropping a large handful 
of pebbles in front of the mouth of the cave. The effect was almost imme- 
diate. But a minute or two elapsed before the hunted animal put his head 
out and calmly surveyed his tormentors. Rogers, one of the men farthest 
from the actual scene of action, now fired ; the bullet struck the bear on the 
nose, and, furious with pain, he rushed at one of the party named Parker, 
who, flinging down his weapon, fled to a fir-tree hard by. As the doctor 
scrambled up the tree, the bear gazing ruefully after him, two aa ell-directed 
shots brought the latter down dead, and, after a hearty laugh at Parker's 
expense, the carcass was cut into strips, and packed among the stores for 
the journey. 

A little later, a detour was made to visit the ruins of Le Gran Quivera, 
situated on a plain some ten miles distant from the mountains, and sup- 
posed to be identical with one of the seven cities of Cibola, visited by Father 
Kino. The ruins were found to be still in excellent preservation ; the re- 



26o Heroes of American Discovery. 

mains of a large temple and of a skillfully-constructed aqueduct for bring- 
ing water from the heights above the town were distinctly made out, and 
the Indians told many interesting traditions of the days when "Le Gran 
Qui vera had been a mighty Aztec metropolis." 

In 1680, according to the redskins, when vast quantities of precious metal 
had been extracted from the mines, and they were about to be taken to the 
Soutli, the Apaches came down from their rocky homes and attacked the 
miners. The latter, warned too late of the impending danger, had but time 
to bury their treasure when the savages were upon them. All but two were 
massacred, and these two, on their arrival in Mexico, gave such a terrible 
account of the cruelties inflicted upon their brethren by the Apaches, that 
no bribes could induce any one to attempt to recover the gold and silver left 
behind. 

Of tlie near x>resence of the descendants of these dreaded warriors, our 
traveleis received proof, before leaving Le Gran Quivera, in the loss of two 
valuable pack-mules and Dr. Parker' s horse ; but, knowing the uselessness 
of attempting to recover the stolen property, the camp was struck, and the 
march resumed at once. A north-easterly course was now jDursued, and, 
after passing through tlie remains of the strange petrified forest— the origin 
and history of which has been so much discussed — the banks of the Rio 
Grande, forming the boundary between Mexico and the United States, were 
reached, whence a pleasant ride brought the whole party back to LaMerilla. 

The little that Cozens had seen of the Apaches on this trip, combined 
with the wonderful stories told of them by their neighbors, and by tliose who 
had escaped from captivity among them, rendered him anxious to learn 
more of their ways. In spite, therefore, of the earnest entreaties of his 
friends not to risk his life needlessly, he determined to start alone for the 
encampments— or rancheria, as they were called — of the Pinal and Tonto 
Apaches, two of the most noted bands of this savage race dwelling near the 
banivs of the Gila. 

For this new and venturesome journey, Cozens was fortunate enough to 
se(;ure the services, as guide, of an Apache war-chief named Cochise, of the 
Pinal tribe, who assured him that in his comx)any no danger was to be ap- 
prehended from his brethren. 

It was a lovely moi-ning in June when the two strangely-assorted com- 
panions left the Chiricalmi Mountains behind them, and, striking across 
country in a north-westerly direction, entered an Indian trail leading to the 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



261 



Apache encampment, over a vast plain with nothing to relieve its monotony 
but an occasional glimj)se of what looked like the gleaming waters of a vast 
inland sea, though it turned out to be the great mirage known as Green- 
liorn's Lake. 

Beyond the plains the travelers came to a mass of " canons, ravines, ridges, 
gullies, chasms, and mountains," some of them j)resenting the appearance 
of exquisitely constructed Gothic cathedrals, while one so exactly resembled 
an organ, with pipes of green, 
white, blue, brown, and pink 
sandstone, that Cozens could 
scarcely believe it to be merely a 
natural phenomenon. 

The Indian trail led into the 
very midst of this chaos of rocks, 
and, breathlessly following his 
guide, our hero presently found 
himself upon the edge of a pass, 
looking down a precipice two 
thousand feet in depth, with i^er- 
pendicular walls of a blood-red 
color, relieved at their summits 
with jiatches of grayish white alka- 
li. Cochise now made signs to his 
employer — master Cozens could 
scarcely be called — to dismount 
and leave his mule to find its owvl 
way down. Then with one word, 
^^ AdelcDite r^ (Forward!), he led 
the way down the i^ass. 

Descending into the gloom beneath the overhanging rock-masses, and 
feeling their way step by step in the darkness, with the mules so close be- 
hind them that a moment's hesitation would have been certain death — for 
the animals would assuredly have pushed their masters over the abyss — the 
adventurers at last reached in safety the bed of the river, which had eaten 
out the pass of which they had availed themselves. Here a halt was made 
for the night, and on the ensuing day the descent of the ravine was com 
pleted, under difficulties even greater than those already conquered. 




cocmsE. 



262 He 7' DCS of American Discovery. 

Late in the afternoon, however, Cochise pointed oat four or five black 
specks in the distance, perched on the strange truncated mounds so common 
in Arizona, and which have excited so mucli curiosity among scientific men. 
"They are Apaches," was the guide's hiconic remark ; and though Cozens 
pressed him with eager questions as to the next experiences to be anticipated, 
lie could get no replies. 

Silently the two i^lodded on for another two hours till tiiey came to the 
summit of a bare bluff, when Cochise again i^aused, and, pointing to the 
valley beneath, exclaimed, "Look! Apache home!" Cozens obeyed, and, 
gazing down upon a lovely valley, watered by a copious stream, and sur- 
rounded on all sides by bluffs some hundred feet high, their surfaces worn 
by wind and weather into all manner of strange forms, he obtained his first 
glimpse of the goal of his journey. 

The Apache huts, with yellow thatched, dome-shaped roofs, nestled here 
and there against the crags, or in little groups by the stream ; from before 
each door rose the smoke of a little camp-fire ; and beyond, on the slopes of 
the upper end of the valley, grazed thousands of cattle, ponies and mules. 

As the two gazed motionless uxwn this scene of peace and plenty in the 
wilderness, they were suddenly jierceived by the Indians. A loud yell no- 
tified the fact, and in a moment the village was astir ; children running to- 
gether, dogs barking, warriors hastily seizing their weapons. But Cochise, 
the wandering war-chief, raised his hand and gave utterance to a i:)eculiar 
cry. He was recognized at once, the arms were thrown aside, and, quickly 
descending the bluff, the two travelers were received by a set of men whom 
Cozens characterizes as the most degraded-looking creatures he had ever 
seen. The women especially, lie says, " were ugly, fat and dirty," and no- 
where did he see any of the beautiful squaws described in the works of 
Cooper, the romancist of the Indians. 

The hearty welcome given to the new-comers, however, compensated in a 
great degree for the absence of beauty in the inmates of the camp. Cozens 
was feasted on pemmican ; a hut was set ai^art for him and Cochise ; a con- 
cert — though of a somewhat ear-splitting character, the instruments consist- 
ing exclusively of drums and rattles — was given in his honor ; and the next 
morning found the white stranger peacefully performing his ;d:)lutions in 
the stream, in the presence of an admiring crowd of women and children. 

Later in the day. Cozens' sense of security was a little disturbed by the 
news of the approach of one Magnus Colorado, an Aj^ache chief, noted for 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



263 



his hostility to the white men, and the number of their scalps he had at 
various times secured to himself as trophies. 

" What," said Cozens to Cochise, in as careless a manner as he could as- 
sume, ' ' will Magnus Colorado say to the presence in your camp of a white 
man ? " "Oh," was the reply, " I sent him word as soon as I knew it was 
he ; and you know, too, he is the white man's friend," 

Not having hitherto had any proof of the latter assertion, unless scalping 
could be considered a token of friendship. Cozens withdrew to his hut ; but 




THE ArAClTES HOME. 



he was soon relieved from his anxiety by a visit he there received from Col- 
orado, who extended his hand in a friendly manner, with the Avords, '' Good 
day ! give me bacca," 

Cozens of course complied at once, adding to the usual chewing tobacco a 
small parcel for smo]<:ing, thereby winning the full confidence of his visitor, 
who proceeded to tell of his recent adventures, showing off as one of his best 
trophies a blood-stained baby's frock, the wearer of which he boasted he 
had himself sent home to the Great Spirit ! 

Disgusted with this and similar anecdotes, Cozens resolved to leave the 



264 Heroes of American Discovery. 

home of the Apaehes as soon as possible ; but he found that he conld not 
do so al)rnptly without risking liis life, and, much against his will, he was 
compelled to be present at a scalp-dance given in honor of Colorado, and 
surpassing in weird horror any thing he had ever read or heard of. 

A huge fire, over which hung a steaming kettle, formed the center-piece of 
the open-air stage on which the revolting ceremony was performed. Eound 
this kettle danced a number of half-naked braves and squaws, each holding 
aloft a spear crowned by a scalp, while every now and then one of the wo- 
men snatched a piece of meat from the caldron, and offered it in derision 
to the ghastly human relics. 

Not until far on in the night was Cozens allowed to retire, and, wIkmi he 
did so. it was with a firm resolve never again to allow his curiosity to get 
the better of his judgment. A few days later he was on his way back to 
Mexico, whence, in spite of the resolution just quoted, he subsequently 
mnde two expeditions — one to the silver mines of Tucson, the other to the 
ruins in New Mexico. 

The account given of the first trip is little more than a rhvm'e of all that 
had been done by the early travelers whose work we have already recorded ; 
but the second contains many a thrilling anecdote of intercourse with the 
Navajoes, who so long harassed the ^^'llite settlers in the ne^vl3^-annexed 
American territories. 

Accompanied by a man named Jim Davis — "a small, wiry, hatchet-faced, 
red-haii'ed Yankee, known as the Emigrant's Friend," on account of the 
welcomt^ he gave to all new-comers to what he considered his own special 
domain — Cozens crossed the Rio Grande near its entrance into New Mexico, 
and, after visits to the pueblos or towns of Acoma and Laguna, conmienced 
the ascent of the Sierra Madre, from the summit of which a magnificent 
view, stretching far aAvay to the Pacific, was obtained. 

Thus far all went well, and the descent of the western slope was all but 
accomplished, when it became necessary to encamp for the night. Cozens 
had fallen asleep, and was dreaming of the lovely scenes he was about to 
visit, when he was suddenly awakened by a hand laid on his shoulder. He 
started up, revolver ready, but no one except " Jimmy," the Irish servant, 
was near, who whispered, " She is calling me ! " Thinking his servant had 
gone mad, or had woke up in terror from a nightmare, the master Avas about 
to order him off to bed again, when a low wail, like that of a child in 
trouble, fell uj^on his ear. 



Heroes of American Discovery. 265 

"Jimmy " was right. Slie was calling In'm, and site was one of the mules, 
at that moment in an agonized struggle with a panther, whose low, almost 
plaintive yell was one of triumph. Rushing forward, accomiDanied by two 
gentlemen of his party, Cozens came up just as the mule's sufferings were 
over, and shared with them the triumph of shooting the panther, who tiirned 
out to be one of the finest creatures of the kind ever brought down in the 
neighborhood. 

On the following day a slight detour was made to visit the ruins of El 
Moro, one of the most stately of the old Spanish cities, bearing traces on its 
walls of the engraved names of many of the old heroes of the days when the 
power of the Roman Catholic Church was at its zenith. From El Moro a 
ride of a few hours brought the cavalcade to the Valley of Zuni, inhabited 
by a few survivors of a race of blue-eyed and fair-skinned Indians, who are 
said to have been descended from the Welsh miners who accompanied Prince 
Madoc on that visit to Cibola, concerning which so hot a war has been waged 
among archaeologists. 

Entering the town of Zuni, a ruin differing but little in general character 
from that of El Moro, the travelers Avere courteously received by the 
cacique, or chief— a fire-looking old man, with large, intelligent, dark-blue 
eyes— wearing a Spanish shawl and trowsers. He conducted them over his 
city, pointing out to them, among its special features, a sacred spring, from 
which neither man nor beast was ever allowed to drink, the genius of the 
place avenging any such desecration by instant death. 

After a careful examination of the wonders of Zuni, the ascent of the 
mountain plateau on the west was commenced, and, after many a pause to 
examine the strange monuments of a departed race with which its sides and 
summit were strewn, the land of the blue-eyed Indians was left behind, and 
that of the fierce Navajoes entered. 

Again, as in the Apache country, Cozens had encamped for the night with 
a sense of false security, when he awoke suddenly, a presentiment of dan- 
ger, which he could not explain, causing him to start up and look around 
him. As he listened intently, the sharp crack of a rifle-shot struck upon 
his ear, succeeded by another and yet another. Springing to his feet, he 
saw a gentleman of the party advancing with stealthy steps, who laid his 
finger on his lips and whispered, "Hist ! Navajoes." 

Another moment and the Navajo war-whoop rang out, and about a dozen 
dusky forms, mounted on splendid horses, were seen advancing toward 



266 Heroes of American Discovery. 

the camp. " We'd better go beliiiid the wagon," suggested one of the white 
men. From behind the friendly slielter of the wagon, tlierel'ore, the heroes 
watched tlie approach of their enemies, who, however, to their great surprise, 
suddenly disappeared. 

"It's the pits ! the pits ! " cried one of the party, rejoicing at the thought 
tliat the Indians had fallen into a hollow unperceived by them until it was 
too late to check their horses ; but again the wild war whoop rang out, and 
as the white men tired, a shower of arrows cleft the air. Cozens received 
one of these missiles in his arm, but, drawing it out, he continued to lire at 
intervals, and by their judicious mode of ainnng, the handful of white men 
managed to keep olT nearly three times theii- number of savages, who linally 
rode off, leaving many of their warriors and horses dead upon the held of 
action. 

A little later, Jimmy, who had been missing from the affray, came riding 
wildly into the camp with the news that he had, single-handed, worsted a 
lai-ge body of Navajoes, and that there had also been a struggle between 
some of these fierce savages and some Zunis, four of Avhom had been killed. 
The latter part of the story received confirmation, as the bodies of the Zunis 
were found on the ground, but of Jimmy's part in the tragedy no proof was 
ever obtained. It also transpired that seven hundred head of cattle had 
been stolen from the Zunis by the Navajoes, the attack on the white men's 
camp having merely formed part of a Avell -organized i^lundering exjiedition. 
The whit(^ men, who had experi(mced much hosi)itality from the Zunis, now 
resolved to retui-n their courtesy by aiding in the recovery of their jiroperty. 
A considtation with the sufferers w.as held, and before many hours were 
over, a large body of horsemen were galloping across the lovely plains of 
the Navajo land to the pueblo where the cattle had been penned. 

So prompt indeed were the measures taken, and so little did the Navajoes 
expect ])ursuit, that the whole of the cattle were recaptured, and on their 
way back to their old pasture-lands before the alarm was given. The same 
night found the white men and their escort once more in safety at Zuni ; 
and, taking the disturbed state of the country into account. Cozens resolved 
to at(eni))tn() further exploratious among the Navajoes for the pi'esent. 

In ascending the heights above the sacred spring of Zuni, however, an 
accident occurred which delayed for a considerable tiuie the retui'U of Coz- 
ens to Mexico. Ill following his guide along a narrow ledge of rock, our 
hero'9 foot slipped on a loose stone, and, before he could recover himself, h^ 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



267 



was flung over the bluff, and fell a distance of no less than three hund- 
red feet into the abyss, clutching Avildly at the rocks in a vain hope of 
saving liiuiself. Presently, he tells us in his own account of the matter, the 
heel of his right boot hit the corner of a stone, he was thrown forward on 
his face, and as he flung up his arms to protect himself, one of his hands 
struck against something sharp. He grasped that something, and, clinging 
to it convulsively, lost consciousness. 

When he came to himself, he was lying on blankets, surrounded by his 
companions, who had had themselves lowered down the abyss over which he 




SACRKD .SPRING AT ZUNI. 

had fallen, and, finding him still breathing, had given signals to the Zunia 
watching above to hoist the sufferer up. This was done with the aid of 
cords as tenderly as possible, and Cozens was then carried to camp on the 
shoulders of the faithful Indians. 

A long and tedious illness, through which he was faithfully nursed by 
his own ])eople and the Zunis, followed, and in the long weary hours of 
weakness \\\(- white man learned more perhaps of the ways of the people 
than he could have done in weeks of hurried traveling. Wliile he was still 
at Zuni, there took place one the worst tragedies enacted by the Apaches in 



268 Heroes of America7t Discovery. 

these the early days of the annexation of their territory to the United 
States. 

A little party of emigrants, numbering some ten persons, under the guid 
ance of the head of the family, a Mr. Stewart, were crossing Arizona on 
their Avay to California, when they were one night surj)rised by a party of 
Apache warriors. Without warning or parley, the savages closed round 
the women and children, discharging showers of arrows upon them with 
deadly effect. All fell victims to the unexpected assault except Mr. Stew- 
art himself, who, seeing thnt he could do nothing, lied to warn two of his 
daughters, who, for some reason or another, had been separated from the 
main party, and were awaiting them a little distance off. 

The daughters, alas, were not at the i-endezvous, and after a long heart- 
rending search, during which he had again and again to dodge the Apaches 
hunting for him, poor Stewart returned to the scene of the massacre of his 
other dear ones. Arrived there, a horrible sight greeted him. A huge lire 
had been lighted, and on it, half consumed, were the naked bodies of his 
wife and six children. All night long he lay upon the ground in an agony 
of despair, and the next day commenced an aimless wandering to and fro, 
careless of what should happen to himself. lie came presently, however, 
upon a little Moquis village, where he was kindly received, and whence two 
natives conducted him to Znni. He lived but long enough to tell his terri- 
ble story. His heart was broken, and after a few days of suffering he 
passed peacefully away. 

As soon as he was able to ti-avel, Cozens left Zinii for the last time, re- 
turning, as he had come, to the Rio Grande, and 1L( nee to his old home in 
Mexico. Since his return, many a thrilling tale has b( en told of the wild 
doings of the Apaches and Nava joes ; but gradually they, like their more 
northerly brethren, are succumbing to the civilizing influence of the white 
man, and their final subjugation is but a question of time. 

The completion of the Southern Pacific railroad, and the opening of the 
many suppU^mentary transit lines of the Union, have at last united in indis- 
soluble bonds the States of the East and of the West. Fresh capital and 
fresh enter])rise are evei" fiowing, like mighty ai'teries, throughout the once 
deserted wa^stes between the I^fississij^pi and the lUx'ky Mountains ; and 
the shrill whisth^ of the steam-engine replaces alike the war-whoop of the 
sava e and the wail of his victim. 




NKW AVICST BRITISH COLUMBIA. 



CHAPTER Xyil. 



CONCLUSION. 



BEFORE closing oiir record of the advance of the white man westwards, 
we must glance on(;e more at British America, which we left on the 
eve of the great political crisis at the end of the last century — a crisis 
which, after long years of ahs()rl)ing struggles, resulted in the consolidation 
into a singU^ colony of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P>ritish 
Columbia, and the vast territories long held by the Hudson's Bay and other 
North-west (companies. 

The banks of the Ked River of the North, the shores of the Lake of the 
Woods, and the vast prairie lands beyond them, were by this time well 
dotted with Pren(;h and English colonies. Loi'd Selkirk, a chief partner in 
the Hudson's Bay Comi)any, lind purchased land of the Indians far beyond 



270 Heroes of Americaii Discovery. 

the original limits of British territory, and the French fur-traders continued 
to push their outposts into the wilderness on every side ; while, as we know, 
the American colonies were ever spreading further and further to the north 
as well as to the west. 

It was in the early part of this century that the Hudson's Bay Company, 
whose previous career we have already sketched, was in the zenith of 
its prosperity. Even so long ago as 1G84, it had declared a dividend of 60 
per cent. ; while a little later, about the time of the Peace of Utrecht, we are 
told that, by a call of only 10 per cent, upon its shareholders, it was able to 
treble its income. But early in the present century — in 1827 — a recent 
writer informs us, " the price of a ilint-lock musket, valued in P^ort Dunve- 
gan at perhaps twenty shillings, was worth sables at three pounds a piece, 
piled up on either side of the weax)on until they were level with its muzzle. 
A six-shilling blanket was bartered for beavers which would bring in Lon- 
don eighteen or twenty pounds ; and a black fox wns obtained for a price at 
which the neediest Bog Rib or Locheaux would now laugh his loudest." 
The Hudson's Bay Company was indeed autocratic within the wide territories 
when; it held sway, and it could make not its own prices merely, but also 
its own laws. As the century proceeded, liowever, a change came : first of 
all, the price of beaver decreased, from the growing use of silk in the manu- 
facturi> of hats. Then came the rising tide of jealousy against monopolies 
and a consequent inclination to examine the Company's titles. Moreover, 
Canada itself was eager for " elbow-room ;"' and still further, as we have 
seen, the Unit(Ml States were spreading northward, and so impinging upon 
its territory. Thus the story of the Hudson's Bay Company has gradually 
come to be one of decay, and the great triumphs won, with the wonderful 
bargains struck by the directors, are alike things of the past. 

One can not but be struck with the lack of enterprise and enthusiasm which 
marked the relations of Great Britain to her American possessions during 
this period. The spread of United States settlements had necessitated the 
establishment of an international boundary line, and in 1818, the 49th de- 
gree of north latitude had been fixed by treaty as the limit between the 
Western States and British America, the St. Lawrence and its lakes remain- 
ing, as before, the boundary between Canada and the Eastern States of the 
Union. But another half-century elapsed before any attempt was made by 
the British Government to survey and mark this new boundary line. The 
outlying colonies struggled on, some of them almost entirely cut off from 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



271 



intercourse with the outer world, and many a noble life was livea and lost in 
the vain struggle for existence. Meantime, as we have seen, the United 
States were being intersected by railways, and their ocean boundaries were 
connected by iron bands. California — youngest state of the Union, and a 
few short years before but an unknown desert — had become the golden link 
between the East and the West. Yet the owners of a territory as vast, and 
perhaps as full of great possibilities as the mighty republic itself, still re- 
mained in ignorance of the true character of their possessions. jVfaps there 
were, but mai)S made w\) of sketches tilled in on hearsay Indian evidence, 
and calculated only to mislead the unhappy explorer who should attemjjt 
to guide his course by their vague delineations, A change soon came, how- 




8ASKATCHEWAN STEAMER, 

ever, and one as rapid as the course of events which led up to it had been 
slow. This change may be said to have been inaugurated in 1857, v/hen 
Captain Palliser started on an expedition, which occupied three years, and 
resulted in the thorough and just assessment of the economic value of the 
districts, extending from the United States boundary in N. lat. 49° to the 
chief rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean, 

The admission of British Columbia to the newly-formed Dominion of Can- 
ada in 1871, the last act of the great political drama alluded to above, was 
clogged with the condition that a railway should be constructed within t<'n 
years " from the Pacific to a point of junction with the existing railway sys- 
tems in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec." The English, if chary of 
undertaking new responsibilities, are i»romi)t in acting on them, and the au- 
thorities of Canada, now fully alive to the fact that they had to do in a few 



272 Heroes of American Discovery. 

yciirs what luid been done l>y their iieiglibors in a lialf-century, lost not a 
moment in sending out engineers to survey tlie ground, and ascertain as rap- 
idly MS possible tli<^ b<\st i-oute for the ))i'()niised line of comniiinication. In 
1872 the preliniinai-y n^poi'ts were laid before the Canadian House of Com- 
mons, and the same year Sandford Fleming, the engineer-in-chief of the line 
to be laid down, made an extensive exploration of the districts to be tra- 
versed, which athled greatly to the general knowledge of the course of the 
Saskatchewan, Athabas(^a, and other rivers west of the Great Lakes. This 
report has been folh)vved by others not less important, Jind indeed the 
lengthened survey over which Mr. Fleming pl■esid(^s has become almost as 
valuable to th(^geogra,pherasto the statesman and the colonist in its results. 

In the month of February, 187o, the source of the Fraser River was 
found l)y Mr. Yi. W. Jarvis, "in a semi-circular basin, com])letely closed in 
by glaciers and high, bare X)eaks, at an (Hevation of T), I UK) feel- ;" and we can 
scarcely refuse this fearless traveler a, place among our heroes, when we read 
of niiK^ Innidred miles ti"a,vel<Ml on snow-shoes, the thernioiiH'ter often ))eing 
"})eh)W tiui tcmperat ur(5 of fr<M>zing inei'cui-y," oi" learn that he "lived th(^ 
last three days on tli(! anticipation of Ji meal at his journey's end." This 
same yeai", ISTf), wassfill furtlier signalized as being that in which the Sas- 
katchewan was first na.vigated by st(!am, for in that year ashiix)!' about 200 
tons ascended from the Great I?aj)id to Edmonton, 700 miles higher, and 
now we l(»a,i'n that this great river is navigated fi'om the neigli))oiliood of 
Lak(; Winnipeg to the base of the Kocky Mountains. 

In 1879, very great advances were made by Fleming and his stall in the 
exi)loralion of the outlying ])orlions of the dominion ; and the Kejiort j)re- 
sented in 1880, togi^ther with the Ai)pendices cont)'i])utcd by the various 
nuimbers of the Survey, marks a new depaiture in Noiili American geogra- 
])hy. Th(^ (extent of territory (Mubrnced in the pai'tlcular expedition refeired 
to ("xtended from the longitude of Fidmonton, east of the liocky Mountains, 
to Port Sim])son on the Pacilic. Tlu^ main ol)j(H't of this survey was to ver- 
ify the reports of the navigability of Wark Inlet by ocean-sailing ships, and 
to asc(^rtain how far the tract of country between it and tlu^ Skeena River, 
with th«^ valley of the Sk(>ena itself, weI■(^ suitable foi" railway ]>uip()ses. Its 
result was the indication of a, choicfi of |>raclical)le roulfs in the districts ex- 
andntMl ; l)ut the (ijovciiimeiit, for reasons which, though iu)t obvious, were 
no (lou))t. well-grounded, decided in favoi* of tlu^ earli(>r route ])roi)osed, 
namely, that by the Yellow Head Pass and the Puriard inlet. Thus the 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



273 



oreat expedition of 1879 was set aside, so far as its main purpose was con- 
cerned • butitaccomplisliedmucli, and has perliaps really served a more 
' practical end, m opening up 

immense regions barely 
known before, and providing 
the student of geography 
with maps urgently re- 
quired. Sir J. H. Lefroy 
admirably expresses our in- 
debtedness to the members 
who composed the expedi- 
tion, in an address delivered 
before the geographical 
section of the British 
Association in IbbO. lie 







Pj^yf, ._"The final decision of the 
Canadian Government to adopt 
Burrard's Inlet for the Pacific ter- 
minus of their railway, relegates 
to the domain of pure geog- 
raphy a great deal of knowl- 
edge acquired in exploring other lines ; explorations in which Messrs. 



FRASER RIVER. 



2 74 Heroes of Avicrican Discovery. 

Jarvis, Iloicly.ky, Kcypci-, and others liavc displayed ivinarkable daring and! 
eiidiuance. 'Pliey liav« foicod their way from tlie interior to the sea-coast, 
or from the coast to tlie Peace? River, ]*ine or Yellow Head Passes, tliiough 
country previously unknown, to Port Simpson, to Burke Channel, to the 
iMouth of tlie Skeena,, and to the Bute Inlet, so tliat a region but recently 
almost a blaidt on our ma2)S, which John Ari'owsniith, our last great author- 
ity, but veiy imperfectly sketched, is now known in great detail." Thus it 
lias happened oiu^e more, as we have so often noted in the coui'se of our nar- 
rative, that the traveler, foiled in liis main purpose, has opened for liimself 
and for the world new scenes by the way ; and as we scan 1 he pages of these 
Canadian reports, pictures rise ])efore us of 8nri)assing loveliness, while w^ 
di'(;am of these vast teiiilories as they will be when the glory of the gorgv 
and the mountain ])ass is varied by the vision of plains covered with corn 
and dolied uilji smiling villages. 

I>!iriii!r llic last ten years, another carise has also laigely contributed to 
the ()])ening u]) of th(? gi'eat AVest. A dispulc* Ix^tween llie T^niled States 
and C'aiia.da,, as to th<? exact interjjretation of the Treaty of 18J8, led to the 
sending out of a, joint commission to settle th(^ matter, and mark out the 
l)oun(laiy line between tlie north-west coiner of 1h(^ Lake of tin? Woods to 
the summit of the llocky Mountains. The Commissioners, most of them 
able 111(11 of science, embodied in tlieir report much interesting geographical 
information of a supplementary character, the most noteworthy points es- 
tablished Ix'ing the vast extent of the Great Plains, with their strange, be- 
wildering succession of mirages, rendering surveying operations extremely 
difRcult ; and the existence of a chain of salt lakes, with no outlet to the 
ocean, extending for lifteen mih^s in an east and west direction, near the 
very lieart of the central watershed of the continent. Nine hundred miles 
were traversed in this successful trip, and the whole of the boundary line, 
now finally dc^termined, w;is marked by stone cairns or earthen mounds, at 
intervals of three miles on the great plains, and by iron pillars one mile dis- 
tant- from each other for 135 miles through the southern prairie of Manitoba. 
Tliese solitary landmarks, whether on th«? rich, fertile lands between the 
Lake of the Woods and the Pembina Mountains, the prairie steppe extend- 
ing from the PembiiKi Mountains to the great Coteau of the Missouri, or 
the wild semi-desert stietchiiig away fiom it to the Kocky IVfountains, will 
soon, if we may so exi)ress it, Ix? set in frameworks of colonization, forgreat 
and mighty are the changes which have taken phice within the last few 



Heroes of American Discovery. 



275 



years. Emigration has more than kept pace with tlie advance of the Cana- 
dian l^icilic llailway ; tluj lied Kiver settlers, no ]ong<^r isolated from their 
kind, are at last enjoying the prosperity so long withheld ; the nnmber of 
settlers has increased rapidly since the opening of two outlets to the ocean 
for their produce ; new settlements in the West are springing up as if by 




WINTER STATION FOR TUB VESSELS OF THE ENGLISH PACIFIC SQUADRON. {Esquimault .) 

magic ; a line of telegraph is completed between the ports on the banks of 
the Saskatchewan and the chief towns of Canada ; while the long inaccessi- 
ble solitudes of the northern range of the Ilocky Mountains echo to the 
many sounds of the ever-increasing traffic along the line which has at last 
brought about the long-desired connection between the northern shores of 
the Atlantic and Pacific. 



INDEX. 



A.'H.liii, 83. 118. ('!il><)t, .Tolin, 20, 37. 

Miih.'iiiia, •I'J, 17)5. (Iiibot, Scbiislitiii, 27. 

Aliirchou, KcniiUKlo (li, 111. Ciiliriilo, .liiiin Kodri^'uc/,, 14ri. 

AliisUti, '2(f^. Ciilircriiiii. ltd, ir.(» to 152. 171, 250 

Alliiiiiv, 110, 121. ('nliroriiia, (iiill'dl', 14'1. 

AlcMimici- Sir Williiim, 8S. Ciiiiadu, First (■.Npioiiilions. 51-57 ; Kxploriilioiia 

Ali;nii(iuii! iM.liaiis. 1 lo', 112, 115 117, l:!l». and sctticiiitMits, 112, 120; (;ai)Uirnl by llio 

Mh'iAliaiiy Mduiitaiiis, HIS. Kii.ulisli, 118 ; Ceded to (lie Fn.'ucli, 118. 

Alloriez, Vallier, 128. Ciiiiadijiii I'lieilic Railway, 271-275. 

Amerii'i'i Uiiowii lo tlu^ Aiieieiils. !». Caiieello. iiOins, 47. 

Aiiaslasiu Islaiul, (il. Camubalism. 55. 12:5, 124. 

Aimai)oiis, 8:5. t'ape nreloii. 28, ;57, 118. 

Apaelie iiidluii.s, I l!», 150. 181, 258, 2(10 2(11, 2(17 Cape Cod, !), Wl, 1)2, 113. 

2(18. Cape l<'ear, 157. 

Apal.'iel'ia River, 157. ('npe May, 105). . 

Aiapalio Indians, 242. C'lipi' Meiidociiio, 14(i. 

Aiilie Ocean, 21(1. Ca|)iielun Friars, 1(>7. 

Arnall, Ca|>lain, 7!t, 85. Carey. Apostle of the Indians, 2:57. 

Arizona,, 112, 1451, 150. 174. 358. Carolinn, 58. 157. 1(15. 

ArUan.sas River. 182, 2:55. 254. Cartier, .lacipies, 51-57. 

ArUansea, villaiiv of, 1:52, 1:5(1. Carver, .lolin, itO. !):5. 

Astor. .lolin .laeob. 220. Cii.-is. (iovernor, 2:5:!, 2:54. 

Astoria, 220 2:12. <.'"«« I'lil^f. 2.!4, 2:5«J. 

Atliabasea, Lake, 214. CalsUill Moiinlains. 10(i. 

Aliantis. Island of, 7. Cevola, Indian villaue, 14:5, 25!). 

A\llon Lucas N'asipie/, de, :55, :17. Clianiplain, Sanmel, 8:5, 88, 112. 

Cliainplain. Lake. 11:5-111). 

i5aliania, Islands, :5I. Cliarleslown (Mass.), !)!). 

l5alboa.Vasco Nunez de. :5I :5:5. Ciiarles River, 1)!). 

Ualliiuore, i-ord, 80. Charlevoix, Father, i:58. i;5U. 

I5avai;aida, Indian villane, 1(11. ChesapcaUe Ray, (18, 7(i. 

Rarre, Nicholas, 58. Cherokee Indians, 15!), 108-172. 

Rear lliver, 247, 248. Cheyenne Indians. 228, 243. 

Re.irs, White and Rrown, 188. U)l. ("liiea,ii(>. 121), i:5;5. 

Reauieu, Adnural, 1:55. Chickas.aw Indians, 4:5. 108. 

Reer Spriiiiis, 247. Chippcway liulians, 122, 121), 17!) lo 181. 2:58. 

Rehriiu;', 2(H).' Cibola, 1 1:5, 25i). 

Rilo\i Rav, 104. Clarke, Captain, 184-11)8. 

I51ack Hills, 22!), 242. Cochise, Indi^iU chief, 201-20:5. 

Rlackbiid, Indian chief, 220. Coli.nny, Admiral, 57. 

Ria.kfecl Indians, 228. Colony, the i-o,sl. 0!). 70. 

RIock Island, 15:5. KA. Colorado River. l44. 245. 240. 

Rona Vista Rav, 52. Columbia i{iver, 140, 188, 1«)4-1!)8, 240; (Ireal 

Roone, Daniel," 108 172. Nariows, IDS; Indians of the Columbia 

Roonesborouuii, 171. F.anuly. I!)0 1!)S. 

15oston, !)!), 100, 102. Colund)us, 7 ; Fiirly life, 1:5,11; .\t thi' convent. 

Rounih'iry ' between United Stales and r.rilish 15 ; At the Spanish court, 10-1!) ; Sets .sail. 

Aint'rica. 270, 274. 1!) : l'!i"d discov«'red, 21; Laiulini!: of, 22; 

RrtMueuf, Jesuit lid.ssionary. Ill), 120. Desertion of IMnzon, 22; Return to Spain, 

Rritish America, 174, 20S)", 271; French trailers 2:5; Seconil voyage, 23; Accusation and 

ill. 212, 270. dealh. 25. 



Index. 



277 



Comnnclio Tiidians, 1.%, 184. 

Coiiiuit, lioficr, ill). 

Connecticut-. 1», 87, KKi, KM, IHJ'.-ir)?. 

Convict ciilonists, S2. 

Cook, Ciipliiin .liuncs, 201. 
' Cop]wriniiu' llivcr, 214, 21(!. 
■ Coronado, Viiscjucz do, 144, 145. 
I Cortercal, (Ja.spar, 2«. 
' Corterenl, Miguel, 2S. 
. Cortes, 140. 

Coureurs dcs hoin, VM, 2()(), 212. 

Coxe, Dr., icn. 
; CozoMH, Mr., 258-208. 
j Creek Indijuis, 158. 
[ Crow Indians, 228, 22'.). 
f Cuba, 23. 

Cundicrland liiver, 170. 

Dacotah Indians, 128, 177, 185. 

Daricn, Isllmuis of, ;{2, •V-i. 

Davenport, .lolin, 150. 
r Davis, Jim, 274. 
' Delaware Kiver, 109, 159. 
1; Do La ^Va^^(^ Lord, 77, 78, 79. 
[ Dernier, (Japtain, 87. 
, D(!s Moines River, i;]2. 
r Dcnys, John, 29. 

D'TTxirville, Ijcnioyne, 104-106. 

Doranlcs, Slel'ano, 142. 

Dover founded, 88. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 0;{, 08, 146. 

Dreuillette, Jesuit missionary ^^ 120-128. 

Dutcli s(!ttlements, 108-110. 

Early K.xplorcrs, 7. 
Eatoii, Tlieophilus, 156. 
Eliot, John, 158. 
El Moro, ruins of, 205. 
p]nii;;iMtion to (lalifornia, 257. 
Encisco, 81. 
* Endicott, John, 99, 151. 
Engli.sh Settlements, lir,st, 04. 
Erie the lied, 8. 
Erie, Lake, 115, 133. 
E.s(iuimaux, 214. 

f Faroe Islands, 12. 

' First American Explorers, 7-12. 

First steamer on inland waters, 234. 

Fhithcad Indians, 198. 

Flennnt^r, Sandford, 272. 

Florida, Disciovcry of, 33-35, 47; Early setth^ 
menlH in, 59, 03; Annexed to th(^ United 
Slates, 173. 

Fontc, Adndral de, 147. 

Fortune, the, 90. 

Fountain of Youth, .search for, 3:!, 31, 35. 



Fox, TiUko, 300, 307. 
Franklin, ("aiilain, 216. 
Eraser River, 272. 
Fremont, John C., 241-254. 
Fremont's Peak, 240. 

French Settlements, 59, 110. 117, 104, 105, 209. 
Freydis, Fric's daughter, 10, 11. 
Frontenac, 133, 134. 
Fuca Juan de, 147. 
Fundv, 15av of, 83. 

Fur I'nide," 104, 109, 118, 127, 137, 173, 177, 212, 
220, 270. 

Oaray, Francis, 35. 
Gates, Sir Thomas, 78. 
Georgia, 158, 159, 173. 
Gilluirl, Sir llumi>hrey, 04, 65. 
Gillnm, (Captain Zachariah, 208. 
Gohl, Search f.w, 37, 5'M41, 142. 149; Discov- 
ered, 250 ; Alica taken for gold, 7(). 
Golden (}at(\ the, 151. 

Gorges, Sir Ferdinand, 87, 88 ; R()l)ert, 88. 
Gosnold, Bartholomew, 71. 
Gourgues, Donuni(iue de, <)1, 02. 
Gray, Cai)taiii, 188. 
(Jralid Manjiii, Island of, 84, 85. 
Great Hear L;ike, 21 1. 
Great Hend, Missoiiri River, 180, 236. 
Great Plains, the, 374. 
Great Slave; Lake, 31 1, 247, 254. 
Greenland, 8, 11. 
Grenville. Sir Richard, 07, 08. 
arijiiii, liie. 133. 
(Jri'jalva, (Japlain, 140. 
Gr(Js.s(!liez, 207, 208. 
Ounnbiorn, 8. 

IMf Moon, 10.5-107. 

Ilarrisburg founded, 102. 

Hartford,' 104. 

Ilatt(;i-as, (!ape, 05. 

Hawkins, Sir John, 59. 

Ilearnc, Mr,, 210, 213-217. 

llenui^pin, 133, 134. 

Hercules, Pillars of, 7. 

Ih^rjulfson, Hjarni, 8. 

Hochelaga, 53, 54. 

Holmes, William, 103. 

Honlan, Baron La, 138, 247. 

Hudson, Henry, 105-108. 

Hudson River, 50, KM). 

Hudson's Bay, 108, 137, 200-208, 310-213. 309, 

270. 
Hudson's Ray Company, 138, 200, 208-217. 
Hudson's Straits. 210. 
Huguenot, colonists, 57-02, 105. 
JIunt, William, 225-2:!2, 



2 78 



Index. 



Huron, Lake, 115. 
Huron Indians, 115, 126. 

Illinois River, 132. 

Independence, War of, 162. 

Indians, conflicts with, 105, 110, 126, 153-156, 

158, 167, 222, 226. 
Indian princess, 42 ; King, -54 ; War challenge, 

9i) ; Ceremony in honor of the dead, 122 ; 

Concert, 263 ; Scalp dance, 264. 
Indians :— 174, 179, 214, 219, 229, 244. 

Algonquins, 110, 112. 115-117. 

Apache, 149, 150, 184, 258, 260-264, 267, 268. 

Arapaho, 242. 

Blackfcet, 228. 

Cherokees, 159, 168-172. 

Cheyennes, 228, 242. 

Chickasaw, 43, 168. 

Chippeway, 122, 129, 179-181, 238. 

Comanche, 136, 184. 

Creek, 158. 

Crow, 228, 229. 

Flatlicad, 98. 

Huron, 115, 116. 

Illinois, 130. 

Iroquois, 113, 116, 123, 124, 127, 134. 

Mohawk, 116, 123. 126. 127. 

Navajoe, 184. 264, 266, 268. 

Nez Perces, 197. 

Onquilaharas, 122. 

Osage, 181. 

Ottoe, 184. 

I'awnee, 181, 234. 

Pequod, 153-156. 

Root, 247. 

Seneca, 116, 127, 133. 

Shoshone, 187, 229, 247, 254, 256. 

Sioux, 128, 134, 177, 185, 225, 238. 

Snake, 195, 196. 

Zuni, 265. 
Indians enslaved, 156, 158. 
Indians, Penn's treaty with the, 160. 
Indiana, 173. 

Iroquois Indians, 113, 116, 123, 124, 127. 134. 
Isabella of Castile, 19. 
Itasca Lake, 239. 

James, Captain, 207. 

James, Captain, 234-236. 

Jamestown, 73, 76, 78-81, 110. 

Jarvis, E. W., 272. 

Jesuit Missionaries, 84, 119, 120, 126, 148, 149, 

167. 
Jesuits, Loss of ])owcr, 1.50. 
Jesuit, a heroic. 124. 

Joques, Isaac, Jesuit Missionary, 123-125. 
John II. of Portugal, 14. 



Kan.sas, 241 , 246. 

Karselue, 10. 

Kennebec Rivei', 88. 

Kentucky, 168-172. 

Kino, Eusebius Francis, 148. 

Kirk. Mr., 118. 

Knight, John, 209, 210. 

Lake of the Woods, 238. 

Lane, Ralph. 68. 

Latter-Day Saints, 255. 

Laudonniere, Rene de, 58, 61. 

Law. John, 166. 

Laws. Mr., 258. 

League of the Colonies, 157. 

Le Gran (Juivera, 259. 

Leech Lake. 180, 233. 

Leif the Lucky, 9. 

Le Moyne. Father, 126. 

Leon, Juan Ponce de. 33-35. 

Lewis. Captain, 184-198. 

Lion Caldron, 230. 

La Paz, 146. 

Long, Major, 234-238. 

Long Island, 9. 

Long Island Sound. 87. 109. 

Louisiana, 135, 166, 167, 168 ; Ceded to United^ 

States, 173. 
Louisville founded, 172. 
Lost colony, the, 69, 70. 
Luna, Don Tristan de, 47. 

M'Dougal, i\Ir., 220-224. 

Mackenzie. Alexander, 213, 217-219. 

Mackenzie River, 214. 217. 

Mackinaw, 225. 

Mad River, 230. 

Madoc. 11. 

Magellan. 32, 49. 

Magnus C(jIorado. Indian chief, 262. 

Maine, 82, 85, 86. 

Mandan Indians, 186, 227. 

]\ranhattan Island, 106, 110. 

Marco Polo, 12. 

Marquette. James. 129-133. 

Martha's Vineyard, 71. 

Maryland founded, 80. 

Mason, Captain John, 156. 

Massachusetts, 71. 

Massasoit. 95. 102. 

Matagorda, B.ij' of, 135. 

Maurepas Lake, 164. 

Mavilla. Indian village, 42. 

Mayflower, the, 93. 

MeaVes. Captain John, 202-204. 

Meudoza, 140, 145. 

Meaendez, Pedro, 60-63. 



Index. 



279 



Merrimac River, 99. 

Mesnard, Ren6, 128. 

Mexico, 140, 144. 

Mexico, Gulf of, 30, 135. 

Michigau, 236. 

Michigan, Lake, 120, 133, ~;37. 

Miildleton, Captain, 210. 

Minnesota River, 237. 

Missionaries, 119, 120. , ^^ ^ -<, 

Missionary colonists, ll»'/50-lf)-v, 

166, 170, 176, 178. 180, 233, 334, ^3J. 
Mississippi Scheme, 166. 
Missouri River, 131, 184-194. 

Great Bend, 186, 226. 

Source of, 194. 
Mitchigamea, Indian village, \6i. 
Mobile Bay 164. 

Mohawlc Indians, 116, 123, 12b, 1-./. 
Monterey Bay. 146. 
Montreal, 53, 114, 120. 
Monts, De, 83. 
Moore, Captain, 210, 211. 
Mormons, 255, 2.56. 
Mount Desert, 84. 

Narvaez. Pamphilo de, 37, 38. 
T*f:itchez founded, 165. 
. Nav-ijoe Indians, 184, 264-266, 268. 
Nebraska River, 234, 236, 241, 246. 
New Amsterdam, lit). 
New England, 92-104. 
Newfoundland, 9, 52, 64. 
New Hampshire, 86, 88. 
New Haven, 157. 
New Jersey, 109. 
New Mexico, 136, 174, 258. 
New Netherland, 109, 128. 

New Orleans, 166. 

Newport, Captain, 72,76. i7. 

New York, UO. 

New York, Harbor of, 50, 10b 

Nez Perces, 197. 

Niagara River, 122, 133. 

Niagara Falls, 122. 

Nipissing Lake, 115. 

Nizza, Fra Marco da, 141-144. 

Nootka Soimd, 201. 

Northmen, th-, U. 

North-West Company, 212, 213, ^i^ 
Nova Scotia, 9, 88, 269. 
Nunez, Alvaro, 141. 

Oglethorpe, General, 159. 

Ohio River, 170; State, 171, 172. 

Ohio Company, 167, 172. 



Oldham, John, 89, 153. 

Omaha, 226. 

Ontario, Lake, 119, 127 

Onquiaharas Indians 12^. , 

Opechancanough, Indian Cliiet, 7d. 

Ortiz, Juan, 40. 

Oswego River, 127. 

Osage Indians, 181. 

Ottawa River, 114. 

Ottoe Indians, 184. 

Pacific Ocean, Balboa discovers the, 33. 
Palliser, Captain, 271. 
Parker, Dr., 259. 
Pawnee Indians, 181, 234. 
Pearl fisheries, 150. 
Penn, William, 159-161. 
Pennsylvania, 160. 
Penobscot River, 82. 
Pen.sacola Harbor, discovery of, 41. 
Pensacola River, 164. 
Peoria Lake, 134. 
Pequod Indians, 153-156. 
Perez, 16, 17, 18, 23. 
Philadelphia, 161. 

Pictured Hocks, 123. _ 109 io-^ 

Pigart Claude, Jesuit missionary, 122, Ivd. 
Pike, Major, 176-183. 
Pike's Peak, 235, 242. 
Pipe of Peace, 130, 131, 178, 227. 
Pittsburg, 162. 
Plymouth Company, 8<, »». 
Pocahontas, 75, 79. 
Poutch art rain, Lake, 164. 
Port Royal, 58. 
Portsmouth founded, 88. 
Potomac River, 75. 
Potawatomie Indians, 2ob. 
Powhatan, 75, 77. 

Providence founded, 102. f 09 . vir^t 

Puritans, tlie, 89-91 ; Embarkation o. 93 ; First 

landing, 93 ; Land at Plymouth 94 ; Thicat- 

ened by Indians, 96 ; Settlements by, 99, 105. 

Quebec, 53, 112, 116. 
Quakers, 161. 

Railroads, 268, 271-275 

Raleigh, Sir Walter. 64, 65, 67, 70. 

Red Cedar Lake, 180. 

Red River. 166, 169, 183. 

Red River of the North, 238. 

Rhode Island, 9. 

Ribault, John, 57-63. 

Rio Bravo de Norte, 183. 

Rio Grande River, 360. 

Roanoake Colony, 67-69. 



28o 



Index. 



Rocky Mountains, 100, 11):?, H)4, 2:'. I, 'Jl-J-^-MT, 

'J>)(5. 
Kool Ir.diiuis. 247. 
Ilupc'it. Prince, 2()S. 

Hose's Edwiml, <'<)nsi)ir!i('y ;it;;iiMsl Hunt, 228. 
llussiiiu Explonilion, 20(1. 

Silt rainiMito, 25(1. 

Sacriinicnto Kivcr, 25;!. 

Ballc, KoluTt Ciivalicide la, llW-UKJ. 

Salmon, 21!). 

Salt Lake. 2;?(i. 

Salt Lake City, 248, 250. 

San i)i('i;<), 14i;, 150. 

San Doniinii'o, 22. 

San Fraiu'isco, 151,240. 

San Xavicr del ]}ac, ruins of, 140. 

Santa Fo, 184. 

Saskati'licwan Rivor, 137, 272. 

Savannah Uivcr, 158. 

Saybrook, 104, 150. 

Scalp (lance, 2(>4. 

Schoolcraft, Mr., 2:5^, 2:W. 

Scotch colonists, 88. 

Seneca Indians, 110, 127, 13.S. 

Shawinut Point, 00. 

Ship Island, 104. 

Sho.shone Indians, 187, 220, 247, 254, 256. 

Sierra Nevada Mountains, 251. 

Siou.x Indians, 128, 134, 177, 185, 225, 238. 

Skraellintrs, 0. 

Slaves lirst landed at Jamestown, 70. 

Slave Lake, 217. 

Slave River, 217. 

Snuth, ('ai)tain John, 73-78, 85. 

Snnth, Captain, 210, 211. 

Smith, Joe, 255. 

Snake River, 230, 248. 

Snake Indians, 105, 100. 

Sofhel, Seth, 158. 

Soto, Hernando de, ;?0, 4(>. 

South Pass. 245, 254. 

Southern Pacitic Railway, 208. 

Spanish I'lxplorations and Seltlcments, 30-18, (50- 

(i3, 140-140. 
Spanish jiower in Mexico, Overthrow of, 152. 
Standish, Captain IMiles, 03. 07, 08. 
Stansbury, Captain, 250. 
Stock, Dr., 258. 

Stewart family, IMurderof, 208. 
Stone, Captain, murder of, 152. 
SI. .Vnthony's Falls, 134. 
St. .\ui;us(ine, 02. 
St. John's Rivor, 57. 



SI. Lawrence, Uulf of, 20. 52. 

St. Lawrence Kiver, .52, 112-118, 178, 237, 238. 

St. Louis, 131, 135, 225. 

St. Mary's, 81. 

Su]ierior, Lake, 123. 

Suiter's Fort, 240, 253. 

Swedish colonists, 1 10. 

Tampa Bay, 37. 

Tennessee, 172. 

Texas. 135, 130 ; ceded to the United Stales, 174. 

Thiiddeet Indians, 210. 

Thorstein, 10. 

Thorvald, 0. 

Tonti, 105. 

Toixiuin, the, 220 ; loss of. 221, 224. 

Ulloa, Francisco de, 141. 

United States, Bei^inninu,' of, 157 ; Extension of, 
173 ; Northern boundary, 270. 

Vaca, Cabeca de, 38, 30. 
Vancouver, 204. 
Verra/.ano of Florence, 37. 
Verrazano, Giovanni, 40-51. 
Vespucci, Ameriii'o, 25. 
Vines. Richard, S7, 80. 
Viruinia, tirst settlement, OS. 
Viscaino. Sebastian. 1 l(i, ISS 
Voyage u]) the Missouri, Hunt's, 225-228. 
Voyaii'e down the Snake and Colnnibia, Hunt's, 
23U-232. 

Walloons, 100. 

AVelsh, 12. 

"West India Company, 100. 

White, John. (iO. 

AVhite Mountains. 87. 

Wilkes, Caiitain, 240. 

Williams, Roi^er, 101-103, 155. 

Wisconsin liiver, 130, 132, 138, 177. 

Windsor, 104. 

AVinnipe-i', Lake, 233, 238, 272. 

Winthroji, John, 00, 101. 

Yellowstone River, 187, 240. 
Yellow Fever in Tjouisiana, 106. 
Verba Buena. 230, 251. 
Youn.ii, Bri^h.'im. 255. 

Zeni, the Brothers, 13. 
Zuni, Riiins of, 3(55. 
Zunis Indians, 205. 



